Abstract
Oil tankers carrying high viscous oil are usually equipped with the cargo-oil heating system. For design of oil heating system, three dimensional numerical analysis of unsteady flow and heat transfer was conducted to grasp the influence of heat loss from cargo-oil tank on natural heat convection in rectangular cargo-oil tank during heating up as fundamental study. From the numerical analysis, typical flow pattern and distribution of oil temperature in oil tank when heated were obtained. Additionally, the relations between the minimum oil temperatures in tank and the overall heat transfer coefficient for walls were discussed.
