Renewable Energy 87 (2016) 1105e1112

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Three-dimensional numerical analysis of the coupled heat transfer

performance of LNG ambient air vaporizer
Shanshan Liu a, Wenling Jiao a, *, Haichao Wang a, b
a
School of Municipal & Environmental Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, PR China
b
Department of Energy Technology, Aalto University School of Engineering, P.O. Box 14100, FI-00076, Aalto, Finland

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Ambient air vaporizer (AAV) utilizes ambient air which belongs to low grade energy to regasify LNG in
Received 17 March 2015 gas terminals. Study on the heat transfer performance of AAV is the foundation of its optimal design and
Received in revised form operation. This paper presents a CFD-based coupled numerical model to investigate the heat transfer
3 August 2015
performance of AAV. The heat transfer coupling between the LNG boiling phase change and the natural
Accepted 19 August 2015
Available online 2 September 2015
convection of the air is taken into consideration. The mixture model combined with Lee model was used
to calculate the heat and mass transfer in the process of LNG boiling. The coupled numerical model was
calculated and validated by the operating data of a real-life AAV. Based on the simulation results of the
Keywords:
Liqueed natural gas
coupled model, the inuence of the air temperature, the inlet ow of LNG and the location in the n tube
Ambient air vaporizer bundle on the heat transfer performance of AAV were analyzed.
Numerical analysis 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Coupled heat transfer

1. Introduction dramatically decrease the heat transfer performance of AAV.

Liqueed natural gas (LNG) greatly reduces the storage space
and the transportation cost of natural gas (NG) and thus promotes
the utilization of natural gas. In the energy sector, LNG plays an
important role in the gas peak-shaving system and the remote area
without natural gas pipeline. LNG should be vaporized using a heat
exchanger which is called a vaporizer before entering the natural
gas pipeline. Ambient air vaporizers (AAVs) are widely used for that
purpose thanks to the advantages in energy and economic savings.
AAV is the key equipment in the LNG vaporization process,
therefore, it should be compact and with high heat transfer per-
formance. However, we have to face the problem that the heat
transfer coefcient of AAV is relatively low and easily inuenced by
the atmospheric conditions and operation parameters. In the air
side of the n tube, heat is transferred to the surface by natural
convection with low heat transfer coefcient. Especially in cold
areas, the outlet temperature of vaporized natural gas usually
cannot satisfy the inlet temperature requirement of the natural gas
pipelines, hence the AAV should be combined with an auxiliary
heat source. Besides, during the operation under these conditions,
the moist air near the surface of the n tube will frost, which can
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wljiao@163.com (W. Jiao).
Therefore, the AAV operation personnel have to switch to the
backup AAV periodically to avoid operating failures [1].
In order to optimize the design and operation of the AAVs,
studies on the heat transfer performance of the AAV are required.
Jeong et al. [2] conducted experiments by using two typical types of
AAVs to investigate the inuence of designed parameters, atmo-
spheric conditions on the characteristics of the AAV in a test room.
Liqueed nitrogen (LN2) was used to substitute LNG for safety
reason. In addition, the numerical analysis with two-dimensional
models was also conducted by Jeong et al. [3] to study the
optimal design of AAVs. Besides [4], studied the convective heat
transfer of the AAV ns using computational uid dynamics (CFD)
under the assumption that the average outer surface temperature
of the pipe was the same as the inlet temperature [5]. reviewed the
physics of fog formation and used computational uid dynamics to
quantify the formation and dispersion of fog from the AAV arrays in
LNG import terminals. A distributed parameter model consisting of
applicable correlative formulae applying to different evaporation
regimes was built by Ref. [6] to simulate the LNG evaporating
process in a super open-rack vaporizer heat transfer tube. Bernert
[7] proposed a new concept for the design and operation of cryo-
genic ambient air vaporizers for the tropical and subtropical cli-
mates with the promise of effectively decreasing the need for
supplementary heat sources.
As can be seen from the previous studies, the main research

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2015.08.037
0960-1481/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1106 S. Liu et al. / Renewable Energy 87 (2016) 1105e1112

methods of this problem are experimental study and numerical

analysis. In the process of experimental study, the AAV is generally
placed in a test room with controllable local environment, but an
extra radiation heat transfer between the AAV and walls cannot be
neglected when compared with the real-life operating conditions.
Moreover, it is quite difcult to ensure a controllable atmospheric
condition when the AAV was placed outside. Besides, the replace-
ment of LNG with LN2 causes systematic error to some extent. In the
numerical analysis, the heat transfer in the radial direction of the
AAV n has been studied and calculated with a two-dimensional
model, yet the study of the heat transfer in the longitudinal di-
rection has not been developed. In addition, the boundary condi-
tions of the solid walls were mostly preset in previous numerical
analysis, hence the heat transfer performance coupling the LNG in
the tube and the air outside of the tube was neglected, and thus
cannot reect the actual heat transfer process.
This paper developed a coupled three-dimensional simulation
model for the AAV, and demonstrated it in the LNG vaporization
process in a vertical star n tube-the basic structural unit of the
AAV. In the simulation model, the mutual restriction relation of the
heat transfer between the uid inside and outside of the n tube
was taken into consideration. The simulation results were validated
by the real operating data of an AAV. The main purpose of this paper
is to investigate how the whole heat transfer performance of the
AAV n tube can be inuenced by the air temperature, the inlet
ow of LNG and the location in the n tube bundle.
Fig. 2. The ow schematic diagram and the geometry model of the n tube.

2. Numerical simulation

The CFD numerical simulation was used to solve the complex

heat transfer process. Heat is transferred from the air around the n
tube to the cryogenic LNG because of the huge temperature dif-
ference. Cryogenic LNG ows into the inlet of the n tube and ows
out from the outlet in the form of natural gas (NG) after absorbing
enough heat from the air. Meanwhile, the natural convection in the
near vicinity of the outer surface of the n tube is enhanced,
because the air density is increased due to the decreasing of the air
temperature. In turn, the natural convection of the air inuences
the vaporization of the LNG in the tube. Fig. 1 shows the heat
transfer process of the whole model.
The heat transfer process is complex, therefore in the three-
dimensional simulation model some assumptions were made as
follows: we assume the problem in full developed steady-state; the
thermophysical properties of the n tube material remain constant;
the heat transfer by radiation is negligible; frost formation and the
velocity of ambient air are neglected; the components of LNG and
its temperature are homogeneous in the tube.
The thermophysical parameters of LNG change with the tem-
perature and pressure and they have inuences on the simulation
results to some extent. Therefore, it is of great importance to take
them into consideration. Natural gas is a mixture which is mainly
composed of light hydrocarbon and little non-hydrocarbon gases.
In this model, the component of natural gas was simplied as
methane (CH4), ethane (C2H6)and propane (C3H8). The mixing rule
of each thermophysical parameter is:
XX
Qm zi zj Qij (1)
i j
Fig. 3. The boundary conditions of the model.

Fig. 1. The heat transfer process from the air outside of the tube to the LNG inside.
 S. Liu et al. / Renewable Energy 87 (2016) 1105e1112
Fig. 4. The gure of the mesh model and the detailed view of the tube (cross section).
Fig. 2 shows the geometric model of the n tube. The air domain
was extended to a cylinder with a radius of 4 times longer than the
n height. The software package of Gambit was used for the mesh
generation. The mesh model showed in Fig.4 was made one-fourth
of the real model in order to accelerate the iteration. The hexahe-
dral 3D mesh was created by stretching the 2D mesh. In order to
improve the mesh quality, the complicated geometry was split into
a few simple blocks. The weak coupling method was used to deal
with the uidesolid coupling problem. Therefore, the uidesolid
interface was split into a pair of coupled faces to ensure the con-
tinuity of the heat ow on the interface. Fig. 3 shows the boundary
conditions of the model. For the uid near the wall, Standard Wall
Function was used. The operating pressure was kept at 1 MPa and
the inlet temperature of the LNG was 162  C.
Fig. 5. The local distribution of the temperature eld along the tube length and the detailed view near the wall. The color code indicates different temperatures. (For interpretation
of the references to colour in this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
1107
The air transfers heat to the n tube to vaporize the cryogenic
LNG, and on the contrary, the air is inuenced by the heat transfer
and ow patterns of the LNG. In consequence, it is essential to take
the air side and the LNG side as a whole instead of setting the air
side as a boundary condition. The air temperature decreases and
density increases because of the heat absorbed by LNG. The uneven
density eld results in the natural convection of the air near the n
tube. In the developed model, the dimensionless relation of Grashof
number and Reynolds number, Gr=Re2 , was used to indicate the
relative intensity between the forced convection and the natural
convection. It was found that the air ow pattern can be treated as
pure natural convection (Gr=Re2  10. On the other hand, the ow
regime of the air outside the vertical n tube was turbulent ow
(Ra>1010) according to the Rayleigh Criterion, Ra Gr$Pr [8].
Therefore, a k-epsilon turbulence model was chosen to the time-
average turbulent transient equations.
The vaporization of the LNG in the tube can be divided into three
regions: single-phase subcooled liquid region, phase change region
and single-phase overheated region. In the single-phase over-
heated regions, heat is transferred from the inner surface of the
tube to LNG by forced convection. However in the phase change
region, there exist two phase ow and mass exchange on the
vaporeliquid interface. The two phase ow was simulated by the
mixture model of FLUENT, whereas the mass exchange was
modeled by introducing an user-dened function (UDF) to the
multiphase ow equations as the source term. Mass will be trans-
ferred to the vapor phase if the temperature of the liquid phase is
greater than or equal to the bubble point. On the contrary, mass will
be transferred to the liquid phase if the temperature of the vapor
phase is less than or equal to the dew point. The UDF was based on
[9] are as follows:
Mass exchange:

ral rl Tl  Tb =Tb ; Tl  Tb
Sv (2)
0 Tl < Tb
1108 S. Liu et al. / Renewable Energy 87 (2016) 1105e1112

Fig. 6. The volume fraction of NG and the temperature of the uid in the tube along
the tube length direction.

Fig. 8. The temperature of the uid inside the tube at different air temperature.


rav rv Td  Tv =Td ; Tv  Td X
Sl (3) The dew point if yi =Ki 1; T Td
0 Tv > Td

Where r represents the coefcient of relaxation time and was set

Ki yi =xi (5)
equal to 104 [10].
Energy exchange: Ki is the phase equilibrium constant of the components, it is a
function of the temperature, pressure and phase mole fraction. For
the mixture of hydrocarbons, the phase mole fraction has so little
SE h$S (4)
inuence on Ki that can be neglected. Wilson correlation [11] was
The bubble point Tb and the dew point Td were calculated based used to calculate Ki:
on their denition:   
Pci T
Ki exp 5:3731 ui 1  ci (6)
X P T
The bubble point if Ki xi 1; T Tb
The bubble point and the dew point in the UDF were iteratively
calculated in the MATLAB based on the formulas above. Conse-
quently, we obtained that the bubble point was 150.6 K, and the

Fig. 9. The length of the vapor phase and the average heat transfer coefcient of the air
Fig. 7. The heat transfer coefcient of the air along the n width direction. with different air temperature.
 S. Liu et al. / Renewable Energy 87 (2016) 1105e1112
Fig. 10. The average heat transfer coefcient of the air outside the tube and LNG in the
tube at different inlet velocity.
dew point was 177.5 K under the operating pressure of 1 MPa in this
model.
3. Results and discussions
A three-dimensional numerical simulation was performed
based on the above mentioned model conguration. We investi-
gated the inuences of the air temperature, the ow of LNG and the
location in the n tube bundle on the whole heat transfer perfor-
mance of the AAV n tube. The simulation results are shown and
discussed as follows (Fig.6 to Fig. 11 were calculated by the nu-
merical model).
3.1. Numerical results
The temperature distribution in the n tube is visually shown in
Fig. 5 which is scaled down in order to be fully displayed. As can be
seen from the longitudinal section, the temperature increases from
Fig. 11. The total heat transfer and the outleteinlet enthalpy difference at different
inlet velocity.
1109
bottom to top and there exist parabolic isotherms in the tube and
smooth isotherms outside of the tube. This is because the cryogenic
LNG ows into the tube from the bottom and forms temperature
boundary layers near the inner surface of the tube.
As LNG ows in the tube from bottom to top, the temperature
and the volume fraction of the vapor phase increase along the ow
direction in the n tube, as shown in Fig. 6. It alto can be found from
Fig. 6 that the volume fraction of NG remains zero until the length is
0.5 m where the temperature reaches the bubble point (150.6 K). In
the region from 0.5 m to 2 m where the temperature slightly goes
up to the dew point, the extensive vaporization makes the volume
fraction of NG dramatically grow to 100%. This is because that the
majority of heat absorbed from the air was used to vaporize the
LNG in the form of latent heat. After this region, the volume fraction
of NG remains 100% and the temperature goes up rapidly.
Fig. 7 illustrates the heat transfer coefcient hfa along the n
height direction. The distance between each pair of adjacent ns
are increasing as shown in Fig. 2. As can be seen from Fig. 7, hfa
basically increases from the n root to top as a whole, because the
interference effect of the adjacent ns decreases. However, there
exists a slightly decline from n height 0.006 me0.012 m due to the
increasing thick of the boundary layer on the n surface.
3.2. The inuence of the air temperature
In order to investigate the inuence of air temperature on the
heat transfer performance of AAV, comparisons were carried out
based on a group of simulations with different air temperatures.
The ambient air is the heat source of AAV, and the temperature
difference between the air and LNG is the driving force of the heat
transfer, which can be expressed as:
 
hATa  Tin m_ hNG;out  hLNG;in (7)
When the air temperature rises, the overall heat transfer is
intensied, resulting in an increase of the outlet temperature of the
NG and a longer vapor phase inside the n tube, as shown in Figs. 8
and 9. Therefore, the outleteinlet temperature difference increases
when the air temperature is higher, and this result is consistent
with [2]. Besides, the average heat transfer coefcient of the air
increases along with increasing air temperature. On the contrary,
when the air temperature reduces especially in winter, the outlet
temperature of NG may not meet the requirement so that a sup-
plementary heat source is needed.
Fig. 12. The geometric model and the number of the n tube bundle.
1110 S. Liu et al. / Renewable Energy 87 (2016) 1105e1112

Fig. 13. The temperature distribution of the same position along the tube length at three different locations.

3.3. The inuence of the inlet velocity of LNG tube on the opposite, the heat transfer of the n is worse than the
one without n on the opposite. And furthermore, if the n tube
In city gas stations, the LNG is vaporized and transported into which is located in bundle has more ns with an opposite n, its
the city gas pipeline after pressure regulation. The inlet velocity of heat transfer performance gets worse. Therefore, the heat transfer
LNG in the n tube is changing according to the gas consumption differences among the n tubes at different locations should be
rate. To quantify the inuence of inlet velocity on the gasication considered in the design of the AAV.
performance of AAV, ve groups of simulations with the inlet ve-
locity from 0.047 m/s to 0.053 m/s were carried out.
4. Example and validation by the operating data
It can be seen from Fig. 10, as the inlet velocity of LNG increases,
the turbulence intensity is enhanced leading to higher convection
A real-life AAV unit (Table 1) in Merlin gasication station which
coefcients. However, higher velocity means that more heat should
locates in Shenzhen, China, was used to validate the developed
be absorbed to vaporize LNG. Fig. 10 shows that if the increasing
model. The real-life AAV is arranged in 8 rows of 9 columns. At the
amount of heat transfer rate is less than the vaporization require-
inlet and outlet of the AAV, the pressure gauges and thermometers
ment, the outleteinlet enthalpy difference decreases as the velocity
are installed, which are used to measure the temperature and
increases. It can be found in Figs. 10 and 11 that the slope of ha and
pressure of the inlet and outlet. The ow meter is installed at the
hL begins to decline and the value of Dh decreases when Vin is above
outlet of the cryogenic storage tank of LNG. All the measuring in-
0.05 m/s. Therefore, 0.05 m/s is the optimum inlet velocity of AAV
struments used in the AAV system can transfer data to the super-
studied in this paper.
visory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, which can
realize the data acquisition and real-time monitoring based on the
3.4. The inuence of the location of the n tube computer technology. Therefore the real operating data can be
obtained by SCADA system.
In general, the AAV is composed of a group of vertical longitu- In order to validate the numerical model, the geometry of the n
dinal n tubes. The heat transfer performance of each n tube may tube, the air temperature and the inlet parameters of LNG are
differ because that the distribution of the air velocity and temper- identical with the real operating condition. By comparing the outlet
ature vary with the location in the bundle. However, the heat temperature and pressure of the n tube, the numerical model can
transfer differences of each n tube in the AAV bundle were be validated. The simulation results (calculated) were compared
neglected in the traditional design program of AAV, which may with the real operating data (measured) in Table 2.
result in some design errors. To verify the guess, 9 n tubes was
selected and aligned 3 by 3 to investigate the heat transfer per-
formance of the n tubes in different locations. The numerical
model and the physical model of each n tube were identical and
the same as above. The cryogenic LNG ows in the bottom of each
n tube and ows out of the top. Due to the symmetry of the n
tube bundle, there are only three different locations for the 9 n
tubes, therefore the numerical simulation was carried out with
one-fourth of the real physical model to speed up the calculation as
shown in Fig. 12. For convenience, the n tubes with 3 different
locations were numbered as 1, 2 and 3.
As can be seen from Fig. 13 and Fig. 14, there exist obvious dif-
ferences of temperature and velocity distribution among the three
n tubes at different locations. The temperature and velocity dis-
tribution of each n is uniform in number 1, yet is uneven in
number 2 and 3. According to the temperature color grade of each
base tube, the order is number 3 > number 2 > number 1 for the
heat transfer performance of the n tube. The simulation results
prove that the location of the n tube does inuence the heat
transfer performance, and the inuence is based on the difference
in temperature and velocity distribution of the air around the n
tubes. In addition, it is found that if there is a n of the adjacent n Fig. 14. The velocity distribution of the n tube bundle of the cross section.
 S. Liu et al. / Renewable Energy 87 (2016) 1105e1112 1111

Table 1
The structure and geometries of the AAV.

Structure Rating value Number of the tubes Number of the ns Di Do d H L

In parallel 5000 Nm3/h 72 12 10 mm 14 mm 2 mm 80 mm 13.116 m

Table 2 LNG ambient air vaporizer n tube was numerically investigated. A

Comparison between the measured data and the calculated results.
Parameters Tair Qin Tin Pin Tout
Measured 25  C 3769 Nm3/h 125  C 1.95 Mpa 20.7  C
Calculated 25  C 3769 Nm3/h 125  C 1.95 Mpa 23.8  C
Table 2 compares the real operating data and the simulation
results. The relative error of the outlet NG temperature was 15%,
which may be caused by the neglect of frost formation and the
interference of adjacent n tubes. The simulated outlet pressure of
natural gas was 11.1% higher than the real outlet pressure. This is
mainly because that the phase change model of LNG ignored the
bubble dynamics and the change of the ow pattern. The future
work of this research will be focused on the frost formation and
phase change to make the model more accurate.
Figs. 15 and 16 show the temperature distribution and the z-
velocity around the n tube which locates in the rst row of the
ninth column. As can be seen from Fig. 15, the air temperature
drops when approaching the outer surface of the n tube due to the
extensive heat transfer. That is why the operation personnel must
stay away from the n tubes at running time to avoid skin cryogenic
burns. Fig. 16 shows an obvious chimney effect [12] of the air
between the ns. The chimney effect help intensify the natural
convection of the air close to the outside surface of the n tube and
thus enhance the heat transfer. The simulation results were
consistent with the qualitative analysis.
Based on the simulation results and comparison analysis, the
coupled heat transfer model presented in this paper can provide
the theoretical basis for the better design and operation of AAV.
5. Conclusions
The three-dimensional coupled heat transfer performance of
CFD-based coupled numerical model was presented and validated
Pout by the operating data of a real-life AAV, which showed the avail-
1.52 Mpa
ability of the coupled model. The main conclusions of the work are:
1.71 Mpa
(1) The three-dimensional coupled heat transfer model works
well and can provide the theoretical basis for the better
design and operation of AAV.
(2) The continuity of the heat ow on the uidesolid interface is
essential to solve the uidesolid coupling heat transfer
problem. The surface split function of Gambit can effectively
solve the coupling problem.
(3) Higher air temperature leads to better heat transfer perfor-
mance. On the contrary, when the air temperature is low,
especially in cold areas, the outlet temperature of NG could
not meet the requirement and a supplementary heat source
is needed. For a specic type of AAV, there exists an optimum
inlet velocity of LNG. The optimum inlet velocity should
ensure that the outlet temperature of natural gas meet the
requirement. The maximum vaporization capacity of AAV
depends on this optimum inlet velocity.
(4) The location of a n tube in the tube bundle can inuence the
heat transfer performance. The heat transfer performance of
a n tube is better if there exist less n tubes around it; and
the ns on the tube has better heat transfer performance if
there is no n of another tube on the opposite.
The conclusions obtained from the research can provide theo-
retical guidance for the design and operation of the AAV. In the
design of AAV, the climate type and the meteorological data of the
using areas should be surveyed in advance to meet the re-
quirements of different areas. In addition, the differences of the
heat transfer performance between the n tubes at different

Fig. 15. The temperature distribution of the cross section of the n tube at different positions along the pipe length. The tube locates in the rst row of the ninth column.
1112 S. Liu et al. / Renewable Energy 87 (2016) 1105e1112

Fig. 16. The z-velocity distribution of the cross section of the n tube of the cross section of the n tube at different positions along the pipe length. The tube locates in the rst row
of the ninth column.

locations in an AAV bundle should be considered to improve the Pci critical pressure of component i
accuracy of the heat transfer calculation. For the operation of AAV, ui acentric factor of component i
when the vaporization load increases, adding a backup AAV is an Tci critical temperature of component i
effective measure rather than increasing the inlet ow of LNG h average convective heat transfer coefcient
which may lower the outlet temperature of natural gas. A heat transfer area
Ta air temperature
Acknowledgment Tin inner uid temperature
m_ mass ux
This work was assisted by Merlin gasication station which lo- hNG,out enthalpy of the NG out of the n tube
cates in Shenzhen, China. The authors gratefully for the assistance. hLNG,in enthalpy of the LNG into the n tube

Appendix A. Nomenclature
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