Abstract
Fluid flow in pipes plays an important role in different areas of academia and industry. Due to the importance of this kind of flow, several studies have involved circular cylindrical pipes. This paper aims to study fully developed internal laminar flow through a corrugated cylindrical duct, using the Galerkin-based integral method. As an application, we present a study using heavy oil with a relative density of 0.9648 (14.6 °API) and temperature-dependent viscosities ranging from 1715 to 13000 cP. Results for different fluid dynamics parameters, such as the Fanning friction factor, Reynolds number, shear stress, and pressure gradient, are presented and analyzed based on the corrugation number established for each section and aspect ratio of the pipe.
Highlights
The oil industry is a major player in the energy sector worldwide
Given the real importance of this problem, in this paper, we propose to carry out a study on the fully developed laminar flow of heavy oil in corrugated cross-section ducts, presenting results for fluid dynamic parameters such as the Poiseuille number, Fanning friction factor, velocity, pressure gradient, shear stress, and Reynolds number, from the solution of the dimensionless momentum equation given by the Galerkin-based integral method, and considering temperature-dependent viscosity
First, we present the numerical results for the Poiseuille number f Re obtained for the different aspect ratio, β, and the number of corrugations, N, of the corrugated cross-section duct
Summary
The increased demand for light oil reserves in recent decades has led to their depletion. There is a large amount of productive crude oil reserves, heavy oil transportation is a complex and expensive task due to its high viscosity, which requires a large amount of energy to pump [1]. One of the major concerns in the production and transportation of heavy oil is related to load loss or pressure drops, which are associated with high flow costs. This occurs due to the fluid friction effect on the inner walls of the duct, making its transport difficult, and increasing the refining cost [2]
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