Hydraulic Analysis of a District Heating Network

The aim of this work is to study the influence of pressure loss parameters from a district heating system on the distribution of fluid flow rates. The research was finalized by improving the mathematical model of a district heating network, which comprises an algebraic non-linear system that synthesizes flow balance equations of a stationary flow. This enhanced model indicates the influence of every consumer’s heat demand supplied from a district heating network on the fluid flow rates distribution based on the means of the implicit function theorem. The originality of the method consists of considering the network a sensitive system that responds to the variations of input parameters (pressure loss parameters) by variations of output parameter (fluid flow rates). The main advantage is that the engineer in charge with exploitation of the heating system may understand what happens with the flow allocations when pressure loss parameters of the network are different from the nominal ones, without making any measurements on the field or computations using new scenarios. The method presented in this paper facilitates the choice of the best decision concerning balancing and practical management of radial heating networks.