TITLE:
Isothermal Transport (Core-Flow Type) of Heavy and Ultraviscous Oil in Curved Pipes: A Transient Study by CFD
AUTHORS:
Bruno Ferreira Silva, Hortência Luma Fernandes Magalhães, Ricardo Soares Gomez, Endyara de Morais Cabral, Francisco Alves Batista, Adriana Barbosa da Costa Pereira, Wanderson Magno Paiva Barbosa de Lima, Antonio Gilson Barbosa de Lima
KEYWORDS:
Core-Flow, Simulation, Two-Phase Flow, CFD, Ansys CFX
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Fluid Dynamics,
Vol.10 No.2,
June
2,
2020
ABSTRACT: In the scenery of the oil industry, the remaining
resources associated with light oils have an increasingly smaller share in the
natural energy resources available to man, and in return the importance of
resources associated with heavy oils has increased significantly. One of the
drawbacks of this type of oil is associated with its low mobility due to the
high viscosity in reservoir conditions, making the transport in pipelines very
difficult, especially through pumping methods that require high powers. Thus,
the development of new techniques and optimization of some existing
technologies, aiming at the commercial use of heavy oil accumulations plays an
important role. A viable technique that has been used is the core annular flow, in which small amounts of water are
injected close to the pipe wall, lubricating the oil core, reducing friction
and decreasing the pressure drop
during the flow. In this sense, this work aims to perform, numerically, an energetic
and hydrodynamic analysis of a heavy oil-water two-phase flow, using the
core-flow technique, in curved pipes, in the Ansys CFX software. Results of the
velocity, pressure, and volume fraction distribution of the involved phases are
presented and analyzed. It was observed that the proposed mathematical model
was able to accurately represent the analyzed phenomena and that a reduction
factor in the pressure drop of 28.4 was obtained as compared to the heavy oil
single-phase flow.