Transient flow in natural gas pipeline - The effect of pipeline thermal model

One-dimensional, nonisothermal gas flow model was solved to simulate the slow and fast fluid transients, such as those typically found in high-pressure gas transmission pipelines. The results of the simulation were used to understand the effect of different pipeline thermal models on the flow rate, pressure and temperature in the pipeline. It was found that simplified flow model with steady-state heat transfer term overestimates the amplitude of the temperature fluctuations in the pipeline. This result indicated that unsteady heat transfer model with the effect of heat accumulation in the surroundings of the pipeline should be used to calculate the gas parameters at locations of interest within high-pressure gas transmission pipelines. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.