The purpose of this attempt is mainly to investigate the thermal characteristics of waxy crude oil under different physical properties and to explore their quantitative relationship, which is a promotion to the accurate temperature prediction, optimal design of heating and temperature monitoring for different kinds of waxy crude oil. Additional specific heat capacity and momentum source terms methods are employed to simulate the changing physical properties of waxy crude oil related to the paraffin crystallization. The general performance of thermal, convection and their coupling with the gelling behavior is scrutinized. The correlation analysis and grey relational analysis methods are utilized. Our outcomes reveal that the effect of viscosity on the cooling is more significant and multifaceted than that of specific heat capacity. Viscosity has the strong and regular correlation with the velocity and temperature distribution and further impacts the cooling rate. The influence of viscosity on the gelling layer at sidewall is more significant than that at top wall, and two opposite performances are observed on the development of gelling layer. On the contrary, specific heat capacity has more direct and simpler impact on temperature. In addition, the ranking of the correlation degree and its detailed information are indicated. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.