Petroleum industry is one of the major industries serving the energy demands. Flow assurance is essential for providing continuous fuel supply. Wax deposition is the main issue that affects flow assurance or reduces the efficiency of transporting crude oil. As the maintenance cost of repairing and troubleshooting is very high, addressing issues related to flow assurance becomes critical in the petroleum industry. This chapter will explore methods used for reducing, cleaning, and monitoring deposition of wax. Wax dissolved in the crude oil gets crystallized causing accumulation across the pipe walls once the bulk temperature of the crude oil gets lower than wax appearance temperature (WAT). Mechanical, thermal, chemical, and microbial methods highlighting general practice in the industry are discussed in this chapter. Next, the direct techniques providing information about the numerical wax deposition models used along with scientific measurement techniques are emphasized. Later, the indirect measurement techniques are discussed providing information about the external probing and nondestructive techniques to obtain information about wax layer deposition inside the pipe. The role of artificial intelligence and use of fuzzy logic for effective wax prediction or in developing the existing wax numerical models are emphasized in the last section.
This article investigates thermal detection method for wax layer thickness inside pipeline. Crude oil temperature decreases as it flows through pipeline and this causes the wax to precipitate out of solution. Wax deposition increases the viscosity significantly near the wall as it solidifies. The proposed method of thermal wax testing of different operating conditions is investigated through this research. In order to determine the layer thickness using fluid and heat transfer analysis and obtain velocity and temperature distributions, mathematical modelling is achieved. The effect of different layer thicknesses on temperature and flow characteristic such as velocity and pressure distribution are examined in this study. The method is examined for different Reynold numbers and flow characteristic and wax thickness are examined. The proposed method is expected to be accurate, efficient and cost effective for online testing of wax layer thickness which find immediate utility in oil and gas operation.
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