Effect of specimen geometry, quenching and trigger mechanism on crushing performance of single hat column

Abstract

Paraffin deposition in the crude oil production pipeline has been an alarming problem to the flow assurance community. This phenomenon causes a tremendous amount of material loss in the production and substantial resources are expended to resolve these flow assurance problems—which included the chemical treatment. This study examined an agricultural non-ionic silane-based surfactant and its blends (with silica nanoparticles) as a flow improver using Malaysian light crude oil (42.4°API). In particular, this study performed the following experimental measurements: wax appearance temperature, pour point, viscosity, and FTIR spectroscopic analysis. The result showed that the surfactant-nanoparticles blend affected the viscosity (significant reduction by approximately 67 %) within certain temperature range and were able to depress both pour point (to 4°C) and wax appearance temperature (15.6°C). It was also revealed that the most potent blend consisted 400 ppm of silane-based surfactant and 200 ppm of SiO2 nanoparticles. The study also evaluated the underlying mechanisms for the variation of viscosity through FTIR spectroscopic analysis.