Experimental study of drag reduction in crude oil of an Iranian oil field

Drag reduction agents (DRA) are used at very low concentrations to accelerate significantly the flow in oil pipeline conduits. In this work, a comparative study on two drag reduction agents for investigation of friction pressure loss during crude oil movement in soft and rough straight pipes have been done. The flow loop, have consisted of two standard straight pipe with 1.5 and 45 μm roughness. DRAs have been injected to system by both of batch and continuous injection method. We used two kind of industrial drag reducing agents with different properties and various concentrations of DRA fluid have been tested. Also, the crude oil was prepared from an Iranian oil field. The optimum concentrations for both kinds of DRAs are determined from the results of drag reduction exhibited by the fluid. The differential pressure versus flow rate data and solvent Reynolds number is applicable for estimating drag reduction characteristics. Effect of DRAs properties (e.g. molecular weight, etc.) on drag reduction completely have been investigated at various Reynolds numbers and DRAs concentrations. The results have shown that DRA's effectiveness is independent of injection method; also the DRAs are effective in reducing pressure gradients in the flow of crude oil by up to 35%.

کلیدواژه ها:

DRA ، Drag reduction ، Crude oil ، pipeline ، pressure drop