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Minimizing Energy Loss by Optimizing Pipe Diameter and Insulation

Thickness in Steam Distribution Pipelines

Article · March 2015

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 SLEMA Journal, Volume 18, No. 1, March 2015

Minimizing Energy Loss by Optimizing Pipe Diameter and Insulation

Thickness in Steam Distribution Pipelines
JACKJ Bandara, Ruchira Abeyweera and NS Senanayake
The Open University of Sri Lanka, Nawala, Nugegoda

Abstract releases more energy as the heat of

vaporization hfg is the higher at lower
This paper presents the analysis of heat losses
pressure.
in steam conveying pipes together with a
selection procedure of correct pipe diameters Most of the processes in industry use wet
and insulation to meet a given requirement. steam, while a few use high quality dry steam.
Selection of proper pipe size helps, prevent or Superheated steam is used in cogeneration.
reduceerosion of pipes, improve the system Proper designing of the distribution system is
performance, and avoid the risk of steam very important as it determines the system
starving. Not using optimum pipe sizes often reliability and energy efficiency. The design
leads to energy losses that will cause higher task includes selection of material, fittings,
fuel consumption, hence higher costs. Apart design of pipe thickness and selection of
from the pipe diameter, insulation plays a diameter, and the thickness of insulation.
major role in reducing the heat loss along the
Insulation of different thermal systems
pipe and hence the fuel cost. However,
provides safety and benefits in terms of energy
increasing the insulation unnecessarily causes
and cost savings. It reduces the heat loss from
higher costs that cannot be justified by fuel
different subsystems such as connecting pipes
savings. Therefore, selection of the optimum
and heat recovery equipment surfaces, which
insulation thickness is very important in steam
can make the working environment more
distribution systems. This paper, therefore,
comfortable. Reducing the heat loss can also
also presents a detailed procedure for
reduce the burden on cooling systems used at
estimating heat losses in steam pipes for
workspaces. In terms of safety, insulation
different insulation thickness values, together
reduces the outer surface temperature of the
with costs involved. This would allow the
piping, which reduces the risk of burns [1].
designer to select the best insulation thickness
for a given requirement in order for it to be The design of piping system in which material
economical. selection, pipe thickness calculation, stress
analysis and support design etc. require to
Introduction
comply with the standard ASME B31.1, power
Use of steam for the purpose of generating piping.
process heat is common in the industry. As
Two principal factors determine pipe sizing in
team distribution system consists mainly of
a steam system. Firstly, initial pressure at the
boilers for steam generation, distribution
boiler and the allowable pressure drop of the
pipelines, and the utilization point accessories,
total system. The total pressure drop in the
depending on the type of end use.
system should not exceed 20% of the total
The industry norm for generation, distribution maximum pressure at the boiler [2]. This
and utilization is that steam should be includes all drops: line loss, elbows, valves,
generated and distributed at the highest etc. The second factor is the steam velocity.
possible pressure and utilized at lowest The flow through a pipe should be between
possible pressure. certain velocity limits, and pipes should be
sized accordingly. Higher velocity leads to
Generating steam at high pressure helps to
erosion of pipes, while lower velocity does not
add more energy to the limited amount of
show a considerable impact on the system.
water circulating in the system. Distributing at
However, lower velocities increase the
high pressure lowers the required pipe
condensate amount and hence energy losses..
diameter, as the specific volume of steam
decreases with the increase in pressure. At the Undersized pipes cause erosion of pipe,
utilization equipment, steam at lower pressure insufficient pressure at utilization point due to

19
 SLEMA Journal, Volume 18, No. 1, March 2015

higher pressure drop, and steam starvation. The pressure drops owing to pipe friction
On the other hand, oversized pipes lead to along the pipe length at minimum and
higher installation cost and higher heat loss maximum recommended velocities were
due to the heat transfer through larger surface calculated next, using Darcy Weisbach
area. Further, the higher heat loss causes Equation (2) [3].
increased condensate that increases the size of
4
fittings needed such as steam traps and …………………………... 2
condensate recovery pipe lines. 2

With regard to insulation, proper thickness of The equation (2) can be rearranged in the form
insulation needs to be established in a given of pressure drop as follows.
situation that would save money. The higher
the insulation is, the lower is the heat loss,
hence saving energy. However, in economic 2
∆ ………………………..……. 3
terms, insulation costs money and need to be
optimized so that investment on insulation is
recovered through energy savings. Where,
Therefore, there should be an optimization            
when deciding on both pipe diameter as well    
as insulation thickness. In this paper, savings        
of energy as a result of using proper thickness      
of insulation and the pipe sizes are      
investigated.        
 
The pressure range from 2 bar to 30 bar and
An unknown parameter in the Darcy equation,
pipe bore diameter from 50 mm to 150 mm,
the friction factor (f) was obtained from the
which are the most frequently used in the
Moody Chart [4] or for accurate figure (when
industry, are considered in this paper for
the flow is turbulent) f was calculated using
analysis.
the equation (4).
Selection of Pipe Size for a Given Steam
Flow Rate 1 2 9.3
3.48 1.74     ……….. 4
Methodology
Where
As mentioned above, pipes for steam
     
distribution networks are sized based on two
 
methods, called velocity method and the
pressure drop method. For wet steam, the
recommended velocity range is between 15 The Reynolds number that is to be substituted
and 30 m/s. into equation (3) was calculated using
equation (5).
Then the minimum and maximum mass flow
rates the pipe can deliver are calculated using ……………………………..…… 5
the equation (1).
Where
……………………… 1
4      
       
Where,      
     
   
  Calculations were performed for different pipe
        sizes (50 mm to 150 mm) at different
    pressures, from 2bar to 30bar, while the flow
For different pipe sizes (50 mm to 150 mm) at velocity is at lowest and highest recommended
different pressures in the range of 2 bar to 30 values.
bar, the steam mass flow rate through the
pipes were calculated (Table 1).

Page 20 
 SLEMA Journal, Volume 18, No. 1, March 2015

Sample Calculation steam, and was taken from steam tables

corresponding to the pressure of 10bar.
Calculation of mass flow rate:
The upper and lower values for mass flow
= 5.65 kg/m3
u = 15m/s
rates through the pipe were calculated based
D = 102.26mm
on the minimum and maximum
recommended velocities(15 ms-1 and 30ms-1) The dynamic viscosity () of steam was taken
using equation (1). as (corresponding to the pressure 10bar and at
saturation temperature) 1.5x 10-4 Nsm-2 [5].
Steam at 10bar flowing in a 100 mm (nominal)
pipe was considered. Substituting in equation (5), for lower velocity
value;
Minimum Velocity (VS15) = 15ms-1
5.65 15 0.10226
Diameter of pipe of 100mm pipe (Di) = 5.78   10
1.5   10
102.26mm
For higher velocity, the Reynolds Number was
Specific volume of steam (vg) = 0.177m3kg-1
calculated as;
0.10226 15
3600 5.65 30 0.10226
4 0.177  1.55  10
2506 1.5  10
The maximum mass flow rate that satisfies the
maximum velocity requirement was The pipe material was assumed to be of
calculated by substituting the higher velocity carbon steel and its absolute roughness (ks) is
value (30 ms-1) in the same equation. in the range 0.02 to 0.05 mm, and in the
calculations the higher value (0.05 mm) was
This gave the maximum permissible steam used.
flow rate (mS30) as 5011kgh-1.
As the flow is in the turbulent range, equation
The selection of proper pipe size for a (4)was used to calculate the friction coefficient
particular application, however, cannot be (f). Iteration method was used with MS Excel
simplified as calculated above. The main software to determine the value of f, which
concern is the pressure drop along the pipe. was calculated as 0.0055.
Even though the pipes selected based on the
velocity method fulfil the velocity Substituting the following values in equation
requirement, they may or may not satisfy the (3), the pressure loss due to friction was
system requirement. The velocity method does estimated as given below.
not address the length of the piping and the
pressure drop in the system. Long pipe 102.26    (Standard pipe chart-[6])
lengths for example, will cause an increase in 0.0055
5.65
the friction loss, hence the pressure drop.
100
Pressure drop method considers the pipe
30
diameter as well as length and the pressure  
drop. 2 0.0055 5.65 100 15
∆
Calculation of pressure drop: 0.10226 10
0.1367  
Considering the steam flowing at lower
velocity (15 ms-1) at 10bar along a 100 m long
pipe line, the pressure drop was estimated as The same procedure gave the pressure drop at
follows, using equation (3). maximum velocity (30 ms-1) as 0.4938 bar.
The friction factor was taken from the Moody For different pressure values and pipe
Chart or for a turbulent flow from equation diameters, the pressure drop corresponding to
(4). minimum and maximum recommended
velocities were calculated and tabulated as
Equation (5) was used to determine the given in Table 2.
Reynolds Number. The density, is the
inverse of the specific volume (m3kg-1) of

21
 SLEMA Journal, Volume 18, No. 1, March 2015

   
The Tables 1 and 2 are useful for the industry  
in selecting pipes in the distribution system. If  
the required flow rate, for example is
4000kgh -1 at 10bar, then the required pipe size              
can be selected from Table 1. In this case, pipes          
with diameters 100 mm and 125 mm can be
used as the required flow rate could be          
achieved within the recommended velocity
range. From the pressure drop in bar per 100m U is expressed as given in equation (7).
can be extracted from Table 2. At 10 bar, the
pressure drop along 100 mm pipe is between 1 1
0.1364 and 0.4938 bar. For 125 mm pipe, it is …… 7
  2 2
between 0.1032 and 0.3741bar. A general
industry norm is that the pressure drop along Where
the steam pipeline should not exceed 20% of  
boiler pressure. Based on this, the optimum    
pipe can be selected. In Table 2, the pressure
drop values are given per 100m pipe length Suffixes, i, o, in and p refer to inner, outer,
and when calculating the total pressure drop insulation, and pipe respectively.
the total length of the pipe should be The reduction in heat loss with different
considered and also equivalent length should insulation thickness values, compared to non-
be added to compensate for the fittings (This is insulated pipe, were computed, hence the
normally obtained by multiplying the length savings in terms of energy, mass of steam,
by a factor varying from 1.1 to 1.15). fuel for the boiler, and money for a period of
Selection of Insulation Thickness 10 years.

Methodology The cost of insulation (including installation)

was also determined for different insulation
The optimum insulation thickness was thickness values, to establish the economic
calculated using the heat transfer theories. feasibility, hence to select the optimum
insulation thickness.
Figure 1 - Pipe and Insulation Diameters
The heat loss through pipe wall causes the
steam to condensate and therefore the amount
of steam lost was determined dividing the lost
heat by the enthalpy of vaporization,
corresponding to the given pressure.
Savings in terms of energy and money for
different insulation thickness values are
presented in Table 3.
Sample Calculation
For the calculation, 100 mm pipe with steam at
10bar pressure was considered. The
temperature of steam was taken as saturation
temperature and equal to 184.2oC.
Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient
Overall heat transfer coefficient was estimated
Heat loss through the radial direction is given
using equation (7) with the following data.
by the equation (6).
The convective heat transfer coefficient of pipe
inner surface carrying steam lies in the range
  ……………….. 6
1000-3000 W/m2K [7]. The highest value was
Where selected in the calculation.

23
 SLEMA Journal, Volume 18, No. 1, March 2015

The convective heat transfer coefficient from system operating about 5 hours a day and 250
outer insulation surface to the surrounding air days a year, for a period of 10 years.
was assumed as 10Wm-2K-1.
 
The insulation material selected was Rockwool 55.78 12500 3600  
and its thermal conductivity was taken as 2510  
0.045Wm-1K-1[8] and the thermal conductivity  
of carbon steel (pipe) was taken as 21 Wm-1K-1  
[9]. 10.56 12500 3600  
475  
From the standard pipe chart [6], the inner and  
the outer diameters of 100 mm pipe were Energy saving due to insulation = 2510 – 475
taken as 102.26 and 114.3 mm respectively. =2035GJ
The heat loss through the pipe wall causes
  102.26
some amount of steam in the pipe to condense.
114.3
Hence, the energy saving in terms of the
3000
10 amount of steam can be computed by dividing
21 the heat loss, by the enthalpy of vaporization
0.045 of water at 10bar pressure (1999. 67 kJkg-1).
Therefore,
Assuming an initial value for insulation
thickness of 25mm, Steam saved = 2035 GJ/1999.67 kJ kg-1
=1017.67 tons
 2 114.3 2 25 164.3
Equivalent savings in fuels can be computed
From equation (7), assuming the fuel consumption to produce
one ton of steam is equal to 75 liters.
1.310
  Fuel saving = 1017.67x 75
Heat Loss in an Insulated Pipe = 76,325 liters
The heat loss through insulated pipe was then Price of one 1liter furnace oil = 82 LKR
estimated from the equation (6) with the
following data. Fuel cost saving = 76,325 x 82 = 6,258,650 LKR

164.3 Cost of Insulation

100 The average cost of 25mm thick pipe
  184.2 insulation including the thin aluminum
  28 cladding and the installation charges is
1.310
about3200 LKR per square meter.
 
0.1643 100 1.31 184.2 28   Then the total cost of insulation for100m long
pipe segment was calculated as given below.
10.56  
Heat Loss in a Non-Insulated Pipe Amount of insulation for 100m pipe length is
51.6m2.
For non-insulated pipes, the overall heat
transfer coefficient can be calculated by Insulation cost of pipe = 51.6 x 3200
equating kins to zero in equation (7). Then U = 165,120LKR
value of non-insulated 100mm pipe was Above calculation shows that providing 25
obtained as 9.945 W/m-2K-1. mm thick insulation for 100mm diameter pipe
The heat loss rate through non-insulated pipe and over a 100m length costs only 165,120
was then calculated as 55.78kW. LKR. Assuming the life time of the insulation
to be 10 years, the net saving would be (6,258,
Savings due to Insulation 650 – 165, 120) 6,093,530LKR.
The total heat energy saving from a pipe with The calculation was repeated for the other
25mm thick insulation compared with a non- thickness values of insulation and the results
insulated pipe was determined assuming a are presented in Table 3 and Table 4.

Page 24 
 SLEMA Journal, Volume 18, No. 1, March 2015

Results maximum net savings could be obtained with

80mm insulation thickness. Therefore, the
Total heat loss, energy savings, and savings in
optimum insulation thickness for the 100 mm
steam, fuel saved and finally savings in costs
pipe at 10 bars can be considered as 80mm.
as result of using different insulation thickness
values are shown in Table 3. Table 5 gives the optimum insulation
thickness derived for different pipe diameters
The net cost savings (difference between the
at different line pressures based on the given
total cost saving and the cost of insulation) are
prices of insulation material following the
presented in the last column of Table 4. Figure
procedure explained above.
2 gives the net savings as a function of
insulation thickness which gives that

Table 3 - Variation of Fuel Savings with the Insulation Thickness

Total
Thickness Heat Total Energy Saved
Saved Fuel
of U Loss Heat saving Steam Cost Saving
Equivalent
Insulation (W/m2K) rate Loss due to Equivalent (LKR)
(l)
(mm) (kW) (GJ) Insulation (ton)
(GJ)
0 9.946 55.780 2,510 - - - -
25 1.310 10.560 475 2,035 1017.67 76,325 6,258,650
30 1.089 9.320 419 2,091 1045.67 78,425 6,430,850
40 0.802 7.650 344 2,166 1083.18 81,239 6,661,598
50 0.626 6.580 296 2,214 1107.18 83,039 6,809,198
60 0.508 5.840 263 2,247 1123.69 84,277 6,910,714
70 0.424 5.290 238 2,272 1136.19 85,214 6,987,548
80 0.361 4.860 219 2,291 1145.69 85,927 7,046,014
90 0.313 4.520 203 2,307 1153.69 86,527 7,095,214
100 0.275 4.240 191 2,319 1159.69 86,977 7,132,114
110 0.245 4.010 180 2,330 1165.19 87,389 7,165,898
120 0.220 3.820 172 2,338 1169.19 87,689 7,190,498
 
 
Table 4 - Variation of Cost of Insulation and net Savings with the Insulation Thickness
Thickness Circumferen
Quantity of Unit rate of Cost of
of ce of Net Cost
insulation insulation insulation
Insulation insulated Saving (LKR)
(m2) (LKR/m2) (LKR)
(mm) pipe (m)
25 0.516 51.6 3,200 165,120 6,093,530
30 0.548 54.8 3,600 197,280 6,233,570
40 0.610 61.0 4,100 250,100 6,411,498
50 0.673 67.3 4,500 302,850 6,506,348
60 0.736 73.6 4,800 353,280 6,557,434
70 0.799 79.9 5,050 403,495 6,584,053
80 0.862 86.2 5,300 456,860 6,589,154
90 0.925 92.5 5,500 508,750 6,586,464
100 0.987 98.7 5,700 562,590 6,569,524
110 1.050 105.0 5,850 614,250 6,551,648
120 1.113 111.3 6,000 667,800 6,522,698

25
 SLEMA Journal, Volume 18, No. 1, March 2015

 
Figure 2 – Variation of Net Savings with Insulation Thickness
6,700,000

6,600,000

Net Saving (LKR) 6,500,000

6,400,000

6,300,000

6,200,000

6,100,000

6,000,000
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Insulation Thickness (mm)

Table 5 - Optimum Insulation Thickness for Different Pipe Diameters at Different Pressures
Pipe size Optimum Insulation Thickness at Different Pressure (mm)
(mm) 5 bar 10 bar 12 bar 15 bar 20 bar 25 bar 30 bar
50 60 60 70 70 70 70 70
65 60 70 70 70 70 80 80
80 60 70 80 80 80 90 90
100 70 80 80 90 90 90 100
125 80 90 90 90 100 110 110
150 80 90 90 100 110 110 110
 
 
Discussion and Conclusion performance and save energy. Tables 3 and 4
give the expected cost savings when different
Sizing of pipe diameters and selection of
values of insulation thickness are used with
optimum level of insulation are very important
100mm pipe diameter and 10bar line
aspects in the design of steam distribution pipe
pressure. It was proven that optimum
networks in order to save energy. Improper
insulation thickness should be 80mm, which
piping and insulation lead to heavy losses in
gives a net saving of 6,589,154 LKR for a 10
terms of steam generated, and finally additional
year period. Table 5 presents optimum
fuel and associated high costs as demonstrated
insulation thickness when different pipe sizes
in this paper.
and pressure are used.
The analysis related to the selection of optimum
pipe diameters and insulation thickness for a  
given application with known steam mass flow Reference
rate and line pressure requirements is presented
[1] S. Anand , N.K. Bansal, S.R. Park and
in this paper, and these provide guidelines in
S.K. Tyagi ( 2011). Comparative study of
sizing steam distribution systems. Table 1 gives
different insulating materials for
information on possible pipe sizes to match the
reducing the heat losses in steam pipes: a
pressure and mass flow requirements in a given
technical study. International Journal of
application. Further, expected pressure drops
Sustainable Energy, Vol. 31, Issue 2, 2012,
per 100m length for different pipe sizes and line
133 – 141.
pressure are given in Table 5.
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Page 26 
 SLEMA Journal, Volume 18, No. 1, March 2015

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