Heat Transfer rate in storage tank

[ssctsa1]

I need to heat/cool the fluid in an exisitng tank and I cannot add an internal heat exchanger and I cannot add a pump to circulate the fluid. One idea is to build an insulated enclosure around the tank and flow cold or hot air through the enclosure to heat/cool the fluid. I know the fluid density, the tank density, the heat capacity of the fluid, and the thermal diffusivity of the tank. I do not have access to my heat transfer textbooks. I need to determine if this is a feasible way to heat/cool the fluid and, if so, the flow rate and time required to heat/cool the fluid. I need a quick way to calculate this, any ideas?

 

[kchan711]

This method's viability will depend on the size of the tank and the time constraints your under. What you should do for a simple calculation is to set-up a resistor-network problem solution, where the resistors equal heat transfer laws through different mediums and nodes are points of interest. You should be able to find applicable examples online at Wikipedia and some general search through Google.

For example, see link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Thermal_Circuits3.jpg

And for general heat transfer info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_transfer

Hope that helps.




Kyle Chandler

http://www.chiefengineering.net

 

[chicopee]

Can you inject a medium (chemically inactive) thru the tank content? otherwise your proposal may take a fair amount of time to cool/heat the tank content.
Your proposal is not too hard to analyse, however, you need initial conditions, physical properties of the tank and jacketed contents, tank and insulation material properties, and educated guess of the convective heat transfer coefficients which may or may not be a function of temperatures.

 

[abcmex]

Perhaps you should visit the site of Thermon:

http://www.thermon.com/us/products.aspx?prodid=90

They offer Heetsheet, it is a kind of dimpled jacket that you can strap on the tank wall. I assume there are others in the market that offer similar designs.

Perhaps they will do the calculation for you and you will get probably as plus a quotation

rgs.