The effect of polymeric drag reducing agent on pressure drop reduction in circular pipes: Experimental and statistical investigation

Abstract

The present work deals with investigating the effect of adding Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) as a drag-reducing agent on the water flow’s hydraulic performance within horizontal smooth circular pipes experimentally and statistically. Several experiments were performed under various operating circumstances such as fluid flow rates at the 6,8,10 l/min for preparing turbulent flow regimes, concentrations of 25,100, 300 ppm of PAN, and inner pipe diameters of 1/2,3/4 in, and temperatures of 30, 40, and 50 °C. The maximum percentage of drag reduction (DR%) was 56 at a concentration of 300 ppm, the flow rate of 6 l/min, temperature of 30 °C and the diameter of 3/4 in. Using the Taguchi method, the results were statistically analyzed. The maximum estimated DR% value was 40.187%, and the error between the predicted and experimental values was about 10%. Moreover, the PAN concentration had a contribution of 96.5% in the polymeric solution DR. Finally, there was a new correlation to predict friction coefficient in terms of the Prandtle-Karman relation with the newly set slope as a linear function of polymer concentration. There was an excellent consistency between this correlation and the experimental data.