An Experimental Study on the Performance of Drag-Reducing Polymers in Single- and Multiphase Horizontal Flow Using Particle Image Velocimetry

Alsurakji, Ihab H.; Al–Sarkhi, A.; Habib, Mohamed A.; Badr, H. M.

doi:10.1115/1.4038847

Cited by 14 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…The subsequent journal publications mostly report about the hydrodynamic theories of drag reduction (DR) and the effects of DRP MW and stability, rheology, multiphase flow, hydrodynamic variables, conduit configuration, surfactant-based product formulation, etc. on the performance of commercial DRPs [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. These references and the citations therein can be pursued for the details.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy-Saving UHMW Polymeric Flow Aids: Catalyst and Polymerization Process Development

et al. 2019

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Crude oil and refinery products are transported worldwide to meet human energy needs. During transportation via pipeline, huge pumping power is required to overcome the frictional pressure drop and the associated drag along the pipeline. The reduction of both is of great interest to industry and academia. Highly expensive ultrahigh molecular weight (UHMW, MW a million Dalton) drag reducing polymers (DRPs) are currently used to address this problem. The present paper, therefore, emphasizes particularly the development of a high-performance catalyst system that synthesizes DRPs (using higher alpha-olefins)—a highly promising cost reduction alternative. This homogeneous catalyst system features a new concept that uses a cost-effective titanium-based Ziegler–Natta precatalyst and a cocatalystLewis base complex having both steric hindrance (around N heteroatom) and electronic effect. This novel work, which involves precatalyst–cocatalyst molecular separation and cocatalystmonophenyl amine association-dissociation phenomena, already generated several US patents. The subject catalyst prepares UHMW DRPs at room temperature, avoiding the use of zero and sub-zero temperatures. The resulting product almost tripled the rate of transportation of a selected grade of refinery product and saved about 50% pumping energy at ppm level pipeline concentration. It is also very easily soluble. Hence, massive modification of existing pipeline will be unnecessary. This will save additional infrastructure cost. This paper also summarizes challenges facing the development of improved heterogeneous catalysts, dispersed polymerization process, molecular simulation-based DRP product formulation, and model/theory of turbulent mixing and dispersion in the transportation pipeline setting.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy-Saving UHMW Polymeric Flow Aids: Catalyst and Polymerization Process Development

et al. 2019

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“…Another way to express the reduction in the energy consumption is the drag reduction percentage (%DR) along the pipeline. This parameter that has been extensively used in many research works dealing with the topic of drag reducing polymers (DRPs) 8 , 11 , 17 . This index can be defined in the context of this work as relative pressure difference (or head difference) between non-treated (subscript N) and treated pipes (subscript T).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Drag reduction (DR) is defined as the ability to reduce the frictional resistance in turbulent flows in the pipeline, particularly using low concentrations of certain additives. These additives can be classified as follows: polymers, surfactants, fibers, micro-bubbles, and compliant coating 8 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another important field of research is the study of the performance of the DRPs, not only in single phase flows but also in multiphase fluid flows 21 , 22 . Alsurkji et al 8 analyzed the effect of drag-reducing polymers (DRPs) for single water and air–water flow, and they compared the experimental results with simulated results obtained by a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) software. These authors found that an increase in DRP concentrations results in an increase in drag reduction of up to 45% in single-phase water flow and up to 42% in air–water stratified flow.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Application of a hydrophobic coating to a pressurized pipe and its effect on energy losses and fluid flow profile

Muñóz,

Reca,

Martínez

2024

Sci Rep

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The use of additives, generally called DRAs (Drag Reducing Additives), has been proposed to re-duce the energy consumption in pressurized pipes. Although many research works have been conducted to analyze the effect of these additives, less attention have been devoted to the application of coatings to the pipe wall. This paper demonstrates that the application of a hydrophobic coating to the pipe can lead to a head loss reduction for a transition flow regime with moderate Reynolds number values (Re). For this purpose, an experiment was conducted to compare the performance of both coated and uncoated pipes by measuring the head losses and assessing the Drag Reduction Percentage (%DR) and the pipe friction factor (f). This was done for two Polyvinylchloride (PVC) pipes with different nominal diameters (PVC90 and PVC63). In addition, the flow velocity distribution was also measured in all these tests. The %DR decreased as the Re values increased, with the reduction being notably less pronounced for higher Re values. This could be explained by the fact that a partial slip condition is induced by the hydrophobic product. Its effect is significant for a transition regime where the effect of viscosity is important, but it becomes negligible for increasing levels of turbulence. No significant differences were observed in the flow distribution between coated and uncoated pipes, which seems to indicate that the velocity change could be limited to the near-wall viscous sublayer. The results of this work open an important research line aimed at reducing energy costs and the carbon footprint in pipe fluid distribution systems.

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“…Al-Sarkhi et al [20,21,22] summarized from their experimental results that higher drag reduction usually occurs in the transition from slug or annular flow to stratified flow using the polymer drag-reducing agents. More recent studies can be found in references [23,24,25]. All these authors described many important factors on the drag reduction rate of gas-liquid turbulent flow.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Direct Numerical Simulation of Gas-Liquid Drag-Reducing Cavity Flow by the VOSET Method

Wang

Wang²,

Cheng

2019

Polymers

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Drag reduction by polymer is an important energy-saving technology, which can reduce pumping pressure or promote the flow rate of the pipelines transporting fluid. It has been widely applied to single-phase pipelines, such as oil pipelining, district heating systems, and firefighting. However, the engineering application of the drag reduction technology in two-phase flow systems has not been reported. The reason is an unrevealed complex mechanism of two-phase drag reduction and lack of numerical tools for mechanism study. Therefore, we aim to propose governing equations and numerical methods of direct numerical simulation (DNS) for two-phase gas-liquid drag-reducing flow and try to explain the reason for the two-phase drag reduction. Efficient interface tracking method—coupled volume-of-fluid and level set (VOSET) and typical polymer constitutive model Giesekus are combined in the momentum equation of the two-phase turbulent flow. Interface smoothing for conformation tensor induced by polymer is used to ensure numerical stability of the DNS. Special features and corresponding explanations of the two-phase gas-liquid drag-reducing flow are found based on DNS results. High shear in a high Reynolds number flow depresses the efficiency of the gas-liquid drag reduction, while a high concentration of polymer promotes the efficiency. To guarantee efficient drag reduction, it is better to use a high concentration of polymer drag-reducing agents (DRAs) for high shear flow.

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An Experimental Study on the Performance of Drag-Reducing Polymers in Single- and Multiphase Horizontal Flow Using Particle Image Velocimetry

Cited by 14 publications

References 40 publications

Energy-Saving UHMW Polymeric Flow Aids: Catalyst and Polymerization Process Development

Energy-Saving UHMW Polymeric Flow Aids: Catalyst and Polymerization Process Development

Application of a hydrophobic coating to a pressurized pipe and its effect on energy losses and fluid flow profile

Direct Numerical Simulation of Gas-Liquid Drag-Reducing Cavity Flow by the VOSET Method

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