Sneak Analysis Based on Energy Flow in Thermal Systems With Recirculation Structure

Sneak analysis in thermal systems means converting the thermal system into an electric system based on the similarity between them, and uses the mature sneak circuit analysis technology in the electric system to evaluate the overall safety of the thermal system. This paper presents a method of sneak analysis based on energy flow in thermal systems with recirculation structure. The new method establishes a sneak analysis model of the temperature feedback element in the systems with recirculation structure, optimizes the current sneak analysis model of a single heat exchanger based on energy flow and apply this method to search for sneak paths that have not been noticed in the thermal system before. The research in this paper makes the sneak analysis of thermal systems based on energy flow not only limited to systems of tree structure, but extended to systems with recirculation structure. The method is applied in the boiler hot water system with waste heat utilization of a ship and compared with current sneak analysis methods. The comparison results show that the sneak paths searched by the new method not only contains the sneak system problems searched by the current methods, but also includes new sneak paths. In addition, compared to the rough qualitative paths searched by the current method, the sneak paths searched by the new method adds the specific temperature conditions when the path is triggered. Thus, the new method is feasible and effective.