Critical thickness of insulation:
In a plane wall the area perpendicular to the direction of heat flow adding more
insulation to a wall always decreases heat transfer. The thicker the insulation,
the lower the heat transfer rate. This is due to the fact the outer surface have always
the same area.
But in cylindrical and spherical coordinates, the addition of insulation also
increases the outer surface, which decreases the convection resistance at the outer
surface.
In some cases, a decrease in the convection resistance due to the increase in surface
area can be more important than an increase in conduction resistance due to thicker
insulation. As a result the total resistance may actually decrease resulting in increased
heat flow.
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Critical thickness of insulation:
The thickness up to which heat flow increases and after which heat flow decreases is
termed as critical thickness. In the case of cylinders and spheres it is called critical
radius.
It can be derived the critical radius of insulation depends on the thermal conductivity
of the insulation k and the external convection heat transfer coefficient h.
The insulation thickness, at which total thermal resistance to heat flow is minimum i,e.,
heat flow through the system is maximum after adding the insulation, is called critical
thickness of insulation. In cylinder and sphere it is called as ‘ Critical radius of
insulation’ and represented by ‘rc’.
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Critical thickness of insulation:
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Critical thickness of insulation:
Consider a cylindrical pipe
Outer radius r1
Outer surface temperature T1
The pipe is now insulated with a material
whose thermal conductivity is k and outer
radius is r2.
Heat is lost from the pipe to the surrounding
medium at temperature T, with a convection
heat transfer coefficient h. The rate of heat
transfer from the insulated pipe to the
surrounding air can be expressed as
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Critical thickness of insulation:
Cylinder:
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Critical thickness of insulation:
critical radius of insulation depends on the thermal conductivity of the insulation k and the external convection heat
transfer coefficient h.
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Critical thickness of insulation:
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Critical thickness of insulation:
The rate of heat transfer from the cylinder increases with the addition of insulation.
For r2 < rcr, reaches a maximum when r2 = rcr, and starts to decrease for r2 > rcr. Thus,
insulating the pipe may actually increase the rate of heat transfer from the pipe instead
of decreasing it when r2 > rcr.
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Physical significance of critical thickness of insulation: r1< rc
For sufficiently thin wires whose radius is rc putting the insulation around the wire
may result in increase of heat transfer rate instead of decreasing it. This happens so
because initially when more and more insulation is being wrapped around the wire.
There is a rapid decrease in conv Rth as compared to little increase in Cond Rth. The
overall effect being decrease in total Rth and increase in heat rate. This continues to
happen up to critical radius of insulation, beyond which any further insulation added
shall decrease the heat transfer rate.
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Physical significance of critical thickness of insulation: r1< rc
This phenomenon is used in the insulation of electrical cables for which insulation
material should be a good insulator for current and poor insulator for heat. In this
the objective is to increase the heat transfer rate after adding the insulation to avoid
overheating of the cable.
Thus to make insulation effective for electrical cable, the insulating material should
have high ‘K’ and correspondingly high ‘rc’.
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Physical significance of critical thickness of insulation: r1< rc
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Insulation of steam pipes/ Refrigerating ducts:r1>rc
For cylindrical bodies with radius of cylinder (r2)
greater than critical radius (rc), the heat transfer rate
decreases even with the addition of a thin insulation
as shown in figure.
This phenomenon is used for the insulation of steam
pipes and refrigerating ducts where objective of
putting the insulation is to decrease heat transfer rate.
Thus to make insulation effective, insulation material
with low value of thermal conductivity ‘K’ should be
used which will result in low value of critical radius
‘r’.
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