(427h) Thermal Conductivity of Several Alkanes Measured By Transient Hot-Wire Method

Crude oil storage and transportation system is the central link in the overall oilfield production. Due to its own special physical property, generally, there is a minimum storage temperature requirement when the crude oil is stored for a long time. No matter which storage and transportation scheme is adopted, the heating technology is definitely necessary. Hence, the thermophysical properties, especially the thermal conductivity, are required to a better study on the heat transfer process of crude oil.

Since the composition of crude oil is very complicated, one or several components of hydrocarbons are usually used instead of crude oil. In this paper, the transient hot-wire method is used to obtain the experimental thermal conductivity data of common alkanes in crude oils, including several typical short-chain and long-chain hydrocarbons, such as n-pentane, n-decane and n-pentadecane. The measurement is based on Wheatstone bridge and the sensor consists of two thin 25μm-diameter tantalum wires with lengths 30mm and 60mm. The obtained data cover the temperature range between 243K and 400K with pressures up to 30MPa. The experimental study is expected to fill the blank of the thermal conductivity research of these alkanes, and the difference of thermal conductivity changed by the number of carbon atoms or molecular structures of alkanes is also studied. The coefficient, at the same time, should provide certain physical property data reference for these kinds of hydrocarbons in storage, transportation and chemical industry applications.