Applying Carbon Nanotubes for Enhancing Fluid Flow

Abstract

One of the economical important challenges in pipeline transportation is reducing the drag; e.g reducing the pressure drop along the pipe as much as possible. Although many efforts have been made, a universal mechanism and environmentally friendly approach to reduce the drag is still setbacks. The present work introduces an environmentally friendly method to reduce drag using microbubble, polyethylene oxide (PEO) with concentrations (100, 400,1100,1900 and 2500 ppm) and nanopaticles (carbon nano tube CNT) with concentrations (100, 400,1100,1900 and 2500 ppm). The pipeline loop was used to individually study the materials, their complexes as well as the combination of either of these with micro bubbles. The experiments were conducted in a pipeline loop to mimic the practice in the petroleum industries. The result showed that the drag reduction increases as flow and additive concentraons increases and the maximum reduction was 40% for PEO and 58% for CNT. The results also show that the use of blend additives has greater effect than the individual materials and combining the polymer, CNT suspended, and the microbubbles gave 80% drag reduction.