Experimental and numerical study of an asphalt storage tank in a reduced scale

• Experimental study of molten asphalt in a storage tank.
• Validation of the numerical simulations using asphalt as the transport fluid.
• Analysis of two different heating configurations.

In this article, the thermal behavior of a cylindrical asphalt tank subjected to two different heating configurations: (i) large area serpentine heating and (ii) concentrated heating cartridges, was studied numerically and experimentally. The goal is to investigate the effect of these two heating configurations on the temperature distribution of the molten asphalt inside the tank, as well as to validate temperature-dependent thermal–physical properties of molten asphalt employed in the numerical simulations. For the experimental setup, a scaled tank having a volume of approximately 0.2 m3 was built, and filled with molten asphalt. The setup was fully instrumented and run at different heat dissipations rates for each of the heating configurations. The experimental results show that the temperature distribution within the tank depends on the heating method and on the heat dissipation level, as expected, however, both heating methods were able to prevent the solidification of the enclosed asphalt and so are feasible for actual application in storage tanks. As for the numerical work, two models representing both experimental heating configurations were also implemented. The numerical results obtained present a good agreement with the experimental measurements, suggesting that a strictly theoretical optimization of the heating mechanics in asphalt tanks can be used in future studies.