Isothermal and non-isothermal water and oil two-phase flow (core-flow) in curved pipes

Abstract

The occurrence of heavy oils in the world has increased substantially and points favorable to investment in exploration of mineral deposits and consequently, for the development of new technologies. Heavy oil has a high viscosity that varies from 100 to 10,000 times greater than the viscosity of water. The high pressure due to friction and viscous effects during the transport of heavy oil has been a major challenge, for itself to be economically viable for production or transportation. The core annular flow technique is a more recent technology favorable the explotation and transportation of heavy oils that provides a considerable reduction of pressure drop during the flow of these oils type. In this sense, this paper presents a 3D numerical study involving the heavy oil transportation in curved pipes, using the core-flow technique by CFD (ANSYS CFX® 12.0). Results of pressure, velocity, volume fraction and temperature distribution of the heavy oil are presented and analysed.