THERMAL ASPECTS OF TRENCHING, BURIAL AND COVERING OF HOT SUBMARINE PIPELINES

A model is reported which computes the heat loss and the resulting temperature drop of exposed, buried or covered submarine pipelines. In the model, the effect of conduction as well as convection can be simulated. The heat loss is computed for typical cross-sections of the pipe on the basis of the full 2-D Navier-Stokes equations for the mean flow. the resulting temperature drop along the pipeline is computed on the basis of the 1-d heat balance equation for the flow of the transported medium. The model, which has been applied in a number of pipeline design studies, has proven to be an efficient tool to economise on trenching, burial and covering of pipelines necessitated by heat related problems.