Thermal insulation design for superheated steam pipeline transport: Balancing technical and economic factors for optimal performance

Proper pipe insulation design ensures efficient and reliable heat transfer to end-users in the heating network. Optimizing pipeline insulation design requires balancing technical and economic factors to enhance energy efficiency and promote environmental sustainability. This study evaluates optimal insulation thickness using a steam pipeline transport model and life-cycle cost analysis, examining variables, including pressure, superheat degree, pipe diameter, and composite insulation schemes within a supersaturated steam network. A condensate term was incorporated to account for phase change effects in vapor transport, improving the accuracy of the model and reducing the enthalpy discrepancy to only 0.101 %. The results indicate that an insulation structure featuring a 74 mm aerogel blanket (AB) as the inner layer and 500 mm glass wool (GW) as the outer layer achieves optimal performance under a superheat of 10 °C, pressure of 0.8 MPa, and pipe diameter of DN600. The life-cycle cost optimization demonstrated a payback period of less than three years for the optimal insulation scheme. Furthermore, the optimal insulation thickness increases linearly with superheat and pressure, with economic parameters, such as energy efficiency and total cost, exhibiting a nonlinear decline at higher pressures.