Thermo-hydraulic steam pipe models for district heating simulations: Simplifications to balance accuracy and simulation speed

Steam piping networks are essential for optimizing performance in industrial processes and district heating systems. However, dynamic models that balance thermo-hydraulic accuracy with computational efficiency remain limited. In response, this paper presents a new discretized steam pipe model based on the plug flow approach, capturing key thermo-hydraulic behaviors while simplifying steam phase change processes. Implemented in Modelica, the model accurately calculates temperature and pressure distributions along steam pipelines. To improve computational efficiency for district-scale simulations, five model simplifications are introduced: lumped thermo-hydraulic functions, empirical correlations, fluid state approximations, steady-state dynamics and inclusion of flow derivatives. These simplified models achieve 85%–98% accuracy in predicting pressure drop and condensation losses, including dynamic condensate behavior during pipe warm-up—a factor often overlooked in existing models. The models support diverse network configurations, scaling effectively to systems with multiple distribution pipes and connected building loads. Discrete models provide detailed insights but exhibit a cubic increase in simulation time as the network scales by N connected building O(N^2.42). In contrast, lumped models simulate 10–28 times faster than discrete, offering quadratic scaling of simulation time O(N^1.73). However, they still require 6 times more computation time than a lossless network, highlighting the inherent computational challenges of modeling compressible fluid flow. The steady-state lumped variant, with its near-linear scalability in computational time O(N^1.01), emerges as an efficient solution for preliminary design evaluations and extensive parametric studies.