Heat Transfer Performance of a Downhole Electric Tubular Resistive Heater

A downhole electric tubular resistive heater is proposed for the oil-shale in situ resorting. After flowing through a set of heating tubes, outlet temperature and flow rate injected gas can be conveniently adjusted to match requirement pyrolysis oil shale. The calculation demonstrates effects inner diameter, length tube, inlet on heat transfer performance heater. It was found that, compared with armored heaters, even small inject 5 Nm3/min, convective coefficient exceeds 300 W/m2 K, resulting much smaller thermal resistance. reach up 900 °C absence complex structure enhanced fins. Though pressure loss relatively larger under high rate, comprehensive index still 40% higher, indicating that present promising candidate deal conditions.