Applied Thermal Engineering 30 (2010) 254259

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Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Short communication

A simple correlation for estimation of economic thickness of thermal insulation for process piping and equipment
A. Bahadori *, Hari B. Vuthaluru
Department of Chemical Engineering, Curtin University of Technology, GPO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845, Australia

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
Where the sole object of applying insulation to a portion of plant is to achieve the minimum total cost during a specic period (evaluation period), the appropriate thickness is usually termed as the economic thickness. The principle is to nd at what thickness further expenditure on insulation would not be justied by the additional nancial saving on heat to be anticipated during the evaluation period. Although an increase in the amount of insulation applied will raise the initial installed cost, but it will reduce the rate of heat loss through the insulation. Therefore it is necessary to reduce the total cost during the evaluation period. In this work, simple-to-use correlation, employing basic algebraic equations which are simpler than current available models involving a large number of parameters, requiring more complicated and longer computations, is formulated to arrive at the economic thickness of thermal insulation suitable for process piping and equipment. The correlation is as a function of steel pipe diameter and thermal conductivity of insulation for surface temperatures at 100 C, 300 C, 500 C and 700 C. A simple interpolation formula generalizes this correlation for wide range of surface temperatures. The proposed correlation covers pipeline diameter and surface temperature up to 0.5 m and 700 C, respectively. The average absolute deviation percent of proposed correlation for estimating the economic thickness of the thermal insulator is 2% demonstrating the excellent performance of proposed simple correlation. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 25 January 2009 Accepted 27 August 2009 Available online 31 August 2009 Keywords: Correlation Thermal insulation Economic thickness Process piping

1. Introduction Energy consumption is rapidly increasing due to increasing population, urbanization and improvement in standard of living. The energy consumption is distributed among four main sectors including: industrial, building (residential/commercial), transportation and agriculture [1]. The most important part of the energy strategy of any country is directed towards energy saving options. Because of the limited energy-sources and environmental pollution arising from the use of fuels, energy saving has become compulsory [2]. In particular, industrial and chemical processing plants contain intricate and costly piping congurations. Piping systems are also employed in many other situations including water supply, re protection, and district coolingheating applications. Various thermal insulation systems taking advantages of different types of thermal insulation materials on both organic (expanded plastics, wood wool, cork, straw, technical hemp) and inorganic basis

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 8 9266 1782; fax: +61 8 9266 2681. E-mail address: alireza.bahadori@postgrad.curtin.edu.au (A. Bahadori). 1359-4311/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2009.08.010

(foamed glass, glass and mineral bers) are being designed and tested [3], and new methods for analysing the properties of both insulation materials and insulation systems are being devised [4 10]. The particular products differ in their shape, ammability, composition and structure, what in a relation to designers requirements assigns the possibilities of their application in engineering practice [3]. Researchers in thermal science are attempting to minimize capital and operation costs as well as heat loss. In previous works multiple objective functions were applied by researchers for the design analysis of a piping system to minimize the heat loss and the amount of insulation used. In these types of complicated methods, a common approach is to sum all objective functions with appropriate weighting factors, and minimize the resulting composite function [11]. However, the analytical solution should only be attempted if a very precise value of thickness is needed because it takes into account of specic details and often it is not a requirement in practical view point as many types of insulation are available only in certain specic sizes. The required thickness of insulation for any specic application depends on the characteristics of insulating material as well as the purpose of equipment. If a process is critical, the most important single consideration may be reliability. If conservation of heat or

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Nomenclature A, B, C, D tuned coefcients k thermal conductivity of insulation, W/(m K) d d outside diameter of steel pipe and equipment, m economic insulation thickness, m

power is the deciding factor, the savings per year as compared to the installed cost is the most important factor. In contrast, when insulation is to be used for a temporary function such as holding the heat in while a lining is being heat cured, then the lowest possible installed cost would be decisive. Thus, because of conicting requirements, there can be no multipurpose insulation. Nor there is a perfect insulation for each set of requirements. A low thermal conductivity is desirable to achieve a maximum resistance to heat transfer. Therefore, for any given heat loss, a material of low thermal conductivity will be thinner than an alternative material of high conductivity. This is of particular advantage for process pipes because thinner layers of insulation reduces the surface area emitting heat and also reduces the outer surface that requires protection [12]. Over the past decades, several methods [1,2,4,8,9,11] for determining the optimum thermal insulation thickness have been developed. However, in practice, these approaches are not easy to use, since they require a detailed understanding of complex mathematical formulations. According to the authors knowledge, there is no simple-to-use correlation in the literature for rapid estimation of the economic thickness of thermal insulation. In view of this status, our efforts have been directed at formulating simple-to-use correlation that can help engineers for rapid estimation of the economic thickness of thermal insulation as a function of thermal conductivity, outside steel pipe diameter and surface temperatures. This is presented here along with the step-by-step procedure for adjusting the coefcients of correlation, and some typical examples illustrate its practical applications.

and equipment diameter as well as thermal conductivity of insulation and surface temperature. In this work, optimum economic thickness of thermal insulations are predicted rapidly as a function of steel pipe and equipment diameter and thermal conductivity of insulation by proposing simple correlation. The following methodology has been applied to develop simple correlation. Firstly, optimum economic thickness of thermal insulations are correlated as a function of steel pipe and equipment diameter for different thermal conductivity of insulation. Then, the calculated coefcients for these polynomials are correlated as a function of thermal conductivities of insulations. The derived polynomials are applied to calculate new coefcients for Eq. (1) to predict optimum economic thickness of thermal insulations. Table 1 shows the tuned coefcients for Eqs. (2)(5) according to the data from Ref. [12]. In brief, the following steps are repeated to tune the coefcients of Eqs. (2)(5): 1. Correlate the optimum economic thickness of thermal insulations as a function of steel pipe and equipment diameter for a given thermal conductivity of insulation. 2. Repeat step 1 for other thermal conductivities of insulations. 3. Correlate corresponding polynomial coefcients, which are obtained in previous steps versus thermal conductivity of insu ;b f 1 ;c f 1 ;h f 1 (see Eqs. lation and we have a f 1 k k k k (2)(5)). 4. Calculate a, b, c and h by Eqs. (2)(5). 5. Calculate the optimum economic thickness of insulation d variable as a function of diameter from Eq. (1). 6. The results can be extended for wide range of surface temperatures with a simple interpolation. So, Eq. (1) represents the proposed governing equation in which four coefcients are used to correlate the optimum economic thickness of thermal insulations (d) as a function of steel pipe

2. Developing simple correlation The required data to develop this method includes the reliable and widely accepted by industry data [12] for various optimum economic thickness of thermal insulation as a function of steel pipe

Table 1 Tuned coefcients used in Eqs. (2)(5) for Eq. (1) to predict the optimum economic thickness of insulation (m). Factors A1 B1 C1 D1 A2 B2 C2 D2 A3 B3 C3 D3 A4 B4 C4 D4 Surface temperature = 100 C 1.619063838 6.0440641629 102 1.2992412636 103 1.0480516067 105 5.675424778 102 1.1266206576 103 4.5476251244 105 5.4011484658 107 1.287145175 103 3.1321987972 105 1.3585299744 106 1.6951529528 108 1.1238180847 105 3.574027836 107 1.5140460085 108 1.8649575376 1010 Surface temperature = 300 C 1.4673416207 9.4579004057 103 9.0991682769 104 2.1036093111 105 5.6420129717 103 8.1324216389 103 3.6013086233 104 5.0991959691 106 1.0914548287 103 3.1336503528 104 1.3704000608 105 1.9239332368 107 1.4969220576 105 3.3674152566 106 1.4658761606 107 2.0517177043 109 Surface temperature = 500 C 1.3064287345 3.7689223988 102 5.7653162538 103 1.5920740612 104 2.3856855469 102 1.7666292295 102 1.2527015231 103 2.9095395202 105 2.2442814135 103 7.879778678 104 5.6411819564 105 1.3264010427 106 3.3668468005 105 9.9103300792 106 7.1509244179 107 1.6973934089 108 Surface temperature = 700 C 1.5068329304 1.6368010607 101 1.9272634157 102 6.081932874 104 2.1494907991 101 7.236908659 102 6.2521396767 103 1.7702985302 104 1.2571952312 102 3.6872340957 103 3.1830356934 104 9.0141402462 106 1.4981731667 104 4.2562432156 105 3.6706099161 106 1.0392224103 107

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and equipment diameter (d) for various thermal conductivities of insulations (k) where the relevant coefcients have been reported in Table 1. This correlation has been developed based for more than 1000 reliable data sets [12] covering wide range of cases and scenarios. As these data are widely accepted by industry and practice engineers in term of accuracy for the purpose of engineering calculations, the formulated simple-to-use expression is justied and applicable to any industrial application. In brief, Eq. (1) represents a new correlation to predict the optimum economic thickness of insulation as a function of steel outside pipe and equipments diameter.

Example 1: Calculate the optimum thickness of insulation for the following case:     Outside diameter = 0.25 m Surface temperature = 100 C Insulation thermal conductivity = 0.04 W/(m K). Ambient temperature = 20 C

Solution: Use the 2nd column of Table 1 as tuned coefcients for Eqs. (2)(5):     

b c h lnd a 2 3 d d d

In the above equations, d refers to the optimum economic thickness of insulation (meter) as a function steel pipe and/or equipment diameter (meter). The factors a, b, c and h take into account of thermal conductivity of insulation k expressed in W/(m K).

a = 2.48181215 (from Eq. (2)) b = 4.85720938 102 (from Eq. (3)) c = 1.08830906 103 (from Eq. (4)) h = 8.85190265 106 (from Eq. (5)) d = 7.0000415 102 m (from Eq. (1))

Example 2: Calculate the optimum thickness of insulation for the following case:     Outside diameter = 0.35 m Surface temperature = 320 C Insulation thermal conductivity = 0.04 W/(m K) Ambient temperature = 20 C

a A1
b A2

B1 C1 D1 2 3 k k k B2 C2 D2 2 3 k k k B3 C3 D3 2 3 k k k B4 C4 D 4 2 3 k k k

c A3
h A4

Solution: Use the 3rd column of Table 1 as tuned coefcients for Eqs. (2)(5):     

The factors A1 through to D4 correspond with the thermal conductivity of insulation k in W/(m K) and they are reported in Table 1. In this correlation ambient temperature is considered as still air at 20 C. The following interpolation formula (Eq. (6)) is recommended to extend the proposed method for other surface temperatures:

a = 1.94379819 (from Eq. (2)) b = 5.2261676 102 (from Eq. (3)) c = 1.183816355 103 (from Eq. (4)) h = 9.6569899 106 (from Eq. (5)) d = 1.24471 101 m (from Eq. (1))

Use the 4th column of Table 1 as tuned coefcients for Eqs. (2)(5):     

d2 d1 d d 1 T T 1 T 2 T 1

a = 1.4799 (from Eq. (2)) b = 8.947755 102 (from Eq. (3)) c = 2.9227943 103 (from Eq. (4)) h = 3.237472 105 (from Eq. (5)) d = 1.80423 101 m (from Eq. (1))

The data to derive this correlation are from Ref. [12]. The correlation proposed in the present work is simple and unique expression which is non-existent in the literature. This is expected to benet and making design decisions which could lead to informed decisions on the economic thickness of thermal insulation suitable for process piping and equipment. In addition, we have selected exponential function to develop the correlation, because these functions are smooth and well-behaved (i.e. smooth and non-oscillatory) equations which should allow for more accurate predictions [13,14].

To calculate the insulation thickness in meter at 320 C, we must interpolate between previous results by Eq. (6). The nal result will be: 0:124471 0:13 m d 0:12447 320 300 0:180423 500300 So: d = 0.13 m

4. Results 3. Solved examples To clarify these correlation applications, two solved examples are reported below: Figs. 14 show the thickness of insulation as a function of outside diameter of pipe and insulation of varying thermal conductivity at 100 C, 300 C, 500 C and 700 C, respectively. These graphs show good agreement between reported data and the estimated

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0.09

0.08

Thickness of Insulation, m

0.07

0.06
Thermal Conductivity=0.02 W/(m.K) Data Thermal Conductivity=0.03 W/(m.K) Data Thermal Conductivity=0.04 W/(m.K) Data Thermal Conductivity=0.05 W/(m.K) Data Thermal Conductivity=0.06 W/(m.K) Data

0.05

0.04

0.03

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0.35

0.4

0.45

0.5

Outside Diameter of Steel Pipe, m

Fig. 1. Comparison of predicted results from simple correlation with the reported data [12] for surface temperature of 100 C.

0.15 Thickness of Insulation, m

0.1

0.05 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25

Thermal Conductivity= 0.03 W/(mK) Data Thermal Conductivity= 0.04 W/(mK) Data Thermal Conductivity= 0.05 W/(mK) Data Thermal Conductivity= 0.06 W/(mK) Data Thermal Conductivity= 0.07 W/(mK) Data

0.3

0.35

0.4

0.45

0.5

Outside Diameter of Steel Pipe, m

Fig. 2. Comparison of predicted results from simple correlation with the reported data [12] for surface temperature of 300 C.

0.22

Thickness of Insulation, m

0.2 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5
Thermal Conductivity=0.05 W/(m.K) Data Thermal Conductivity=0.06 W/(m.K) Data Thermal Conductivity=0.07 W/(m.K) Data Thermal Conductivity=0.08 W/(m.K) Data Thermal Conductivity=0.09 W/(m.K) Data

Outside Diameter of Steel Pipe, m

Fig. 3. Comparison of predicted results from simple correlation with the reported data [12] for surface temperature of 500 C.

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0.28

Thickness of Insulation, m

0.26 0.24 0.22 0.2 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25
Thermal Conductivity=0.07 W/(m.K) Data Thermal Conductivity=0.08 W/(m.K) Data Thermal Conductivity=0.09 W/(m.K) Data Thermal Conductivity=0.10 W/(m.K) Data Thermal Conductivity=0.11 W/(m.K) Data

0.3

0.35

0.4

0.45

0.5

Outside Diameter of Steel Pipe, m

Fig. 4. Comparison of predicted results from simple correlation with the reported data [12] for surface temperature of 700 C.

Table 2 Accuracy of proposed correlation for predicting the economic thickness of thermal insulation in comparison with reported data [12]. Surface Temperature (C) Diameter (m) Thermal conductivity (W/(m K)) Calculated the economic thickness of thermal insulation (m) 0.03137 0.0571 0.0894 0.05667 0.09875 0.1576 0.0909 0.1513 0.2255 0.0974 0.214 0.2697 The economic thickness of thermal insulation (data) (m) [12] 0.031 0.056 0.091 0.055 0.098 0.159 0.089 0.145 0.237 0.099 0.209 0.271 Average absolute deviation percent (AADP)

100 100 100 300 300 300 500 500 500 700 700 700

0.0269 0.1016 0.457 0.0213 0.0889 0.4064 0.0337 0.1143 0.508 0.0172 0.1683 0.3556

0.02 0.04 0.06 0.03 0.05 0.07 0.05 0.07 0.09 0.07 0.09 0.11

1.19 1.96 1.75 3.03 0.77 0.88 2.13 4.34 4.85 1.62 2.39 0.48 2.12%

can easily and quickly be solved by spreadsheet. In addition, the estimates are quite accurate, as evidenced by the comparisons with reliable data. The average absolute deviation percent of proposed correlation for estimating the economic thickness of the thermal insulators is 2.12%. Simple-to-use approach can be of immense practical value for the practice engineers to have a quick check on optimum insulation thickness for process piping and equipments at various conditions without performing any experimental measurements. In particular, mechanical and process engineers would nd the proposed approach to be user friendly involving no complex expressions with transparent calculations.

Acknowledgements The lead author acknowledges the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training for Endeavour International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (EIPRS), the Ofce of Research & Development at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia for providing Curtin University Postgraduate Research Scholarship and the State Government of Western Australia for providing top up scholarship through Western Australian Energy Research Alliance (WA:ERA). Useful comments from anonymous reviewers and the editor that improved the original version of the paper are acknowledged.

Average absolute deviation percent (AADP)

results from the proposed simple correlation. Table 2 shows the average absolute deviation percent of proposed correlation in comparison with typical data is 2.12% demonstrating the excellent performance of proposed correlation. The proposed correlation covers pipeline diameter and temperature up to 0.5 m and 700 C, respectively. 5. Conclusions In the present work, a simple correlation was formulated for the estimation of economic thickness of thermal insulation for process piping and equipment. The proposed simple correlation is as a function of steel pipe diameter and thermal conductivity of insulation for surface temperatures at 100 C, 300 C, 500 C and 700 C. A simple interpolation generalizes this correlation for wide range of surface temperatures. Unlike complex mathematical approaches for estimating thermal insulation thickness, the proposed correlation is simple to use, employing basic algebraic equations that

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