Experimental Study on Affecting Factors of Shutdown Time of Submarine Oil Pipeline

The secure shutdown time of submarine oil pipeline must be determined before pipeline designed and put into production. Considering the actual operation situations, physical model of heat transfer was established for submarine oil pipelines, and experimental equipment of submarine oil pipelines with shutdown and heat transfer was designed based on the similarity theory. It can simulate the shutdown process of submarine oil pipelines in different seawater temperatures, flow rates of the water, crude oil temperatures, water cuts of crude oil and pipeline radius. The experiment testing of temperature drop of crude oil in Φ 426 submarine pipelines were accomplished under different shutdown conditions.The results show that the seawater temperature and crude oil temperature with pipelines shutdown are the main factors that influence the shutdown time of submarine oil pipeline.