Non- Newtonian Drag Reducing Flow Characteristics in Porous Media

Abstract

In this paper, the properties affecting the flow behavior of a non-Newtonian drag reduction fluid through porous media were studied. The experimental work was carried out for the flow of pure water and dilute polyethylene oxide solution with concentrations C = 50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 ppm in a circular pipe with a 2.54 cm inside diameter filled with porous media (uniform size of plastic spheres with 5.5 mm in diameter). The experiments are utilized to show the effect of the variation of polyethylene oxide concentration on the pressure drop and friction factor by changing the flow rate and polyethylene oxide concentrations. To validate the experimental results, a comparison of pressure drop and friction factor for pure water is done with the Ergun model, which gives good agreement. The experiments show that the friction factor and the pressure drop are reduced by the increase in POE concentration. The drag reduction ratio increases with the increase in POE concentration and its effectiveness is higher at low velocities (between 0.012 and 0.068 m/s) than at higher velocities (from 0.068 to 0.157 m/s). A modified relationship was deduced as an extension of Ergun to describe the effect of POE concentrations as a drag reducing additive in the non-Newtonian fluid flow through a porous medium.