A Two-Parameter Model for Water-Lubricated Pipeline Transportation of Unconventional Crudes

Abstract

Water-lubricated flow technology is an environmentally friendly and economically beneficial means of transporting unconventional viscous crudes. The current research was initiated to investigate an engineering model suitable to estimate the frictional pressure losses in water-lubricated pipelines as a function of design/operating parameters such as flow rates, water content, pipe size, and liquid properties. The available models were reviewed and critically assessed for this purpose. As the reliability of the existing models was not found to be satisfactory, a new two-parameter model was developed based on a phenomenological analysis of the dataset available in the open literature. The experimental conditions for these data included pipe sizes and oil viscosities in the ranges of 25–260 mm and 1220–26,500 mPa·s, respectively. A similar range of water equivalent Reynolds numbers corresponding to the investigated flow conditions was 103–106. The predictions of the new model agreed well with the experimental results. The respective values of the coefficient of determination (R2) and the root mean square error (RMSE) were 0.90 and 0.46. The current model is more refined, easy-to-use, and adaptable compared to other existing models.