Abstract

Studies on unsteady state heat transfer to petroleum crude oil

Author(s): Mohammed Said Saleh Al-Rawahi, Dubasi Govardhana Rao

Studies on unsteady state heat transfer to petroleum crude oil are not very common, asmost of theworks dealwith steady state heat transfer to petroleum crudes in view of its industrial advantage during distillation of crude oil to make petroleum products. We come across the unsteady state heat transfer to petroleumcrude oil in the beginning of the process of heating the crude in the distillation still. Keeping this objective in view, crude oil was obtained froman oilwell at Fahood in sultanate ofOman, and itwas heated in a stirred vessel which was kept in a water bath at 80oC. The unsteady state heat transfer coefficientwas determined. The viscosity of the crude oilwas varied by adding different quantities of commercial candle wax samples. The initial apparent viscosities of the samples were measured using Redwood viscometer. The dependence of heat transfer coefficient on viscosity was assessed, and it was found to decrease with increase in viscosity following an exponential power order of -0.3257 as h = (1/ µ)0.3257