Heavy crude oil exhibits very complex viscoelastic behaviors
due
to its complex composition of resins, asphaltenes, saturates, and
aromatics. It has a great influence on oil production and transportation.
In this work, the viscoelastic behaviors of three different heavy
crude oils were measured using a rotational rheometer. In conclusion,
all of these heavy crude oils display linear viscoelastic behaviors
in the experimental range. The loss modulus (
E
″)
of the three crude oils decreased as the experimental temperature
increased, and the variation trends of the three crude oils were basically
the same. However, the experimental temperature has almost no effect
on the storage modulus (
E
′), which always
retained a constant value of 0.4 Pa. Furthermore, the storage modulus
(
E′
) and loss modulus (
E
″)
increase as the angular frequency increases. To describe the physical
deformation characteristics of viscoelastic materials, the generalized
Maxwell model and the fractional derivative Maxwell model are used
to establish the constitutive relation of heavy crude oil. In conclusion,
the generalized Maxwell model and the fractional derivative Maxwell
model can predict the experimental results very well. All of the square
of the correlation coefficient (
R
2
) values
are greater than 0.95. However, the number of fitting parameters for
the fractional derivative Maxwell model is less than that for the
fourth-order generalized Maxwell model which can save the calculating
time. Therefore, the fractional derivative Maxwell model is suggested
to describe the viscoelastic behavior of heavy crude oil in industrial
applications.