Numerical prediction of temperature field for cargo containment system (CCS) of LNG carriers during pre-cooling operations

To minimize the thermal gradient of cargo containment system (CCS), the cargo tanks of LNG carriers must be pre-cooled gradually before loading bulk LNG cargos. This paper presents a numerical prediction of the thermodynamics associated with the pre-cooling operation of the membrane-type tanks of the LNG carriers using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. In this work, the CCS physical model is used and the latent heat caused by the phase transition during the LNG boiling process is included when calculating the associated heat transfer. The numerical results are firstly compared with the experimental data available in literature. The characteristics of conjugate heat transfer, the temperature field in the CCS and fluid inside the cargo tank, the temperature gradient in the insulation layers are focused, which are distinguished it from previous work. The results and conclusions may help guiding the pre-cooling operation for LNG carriers.