Experiments in Drag-Reducing Polymer Flows

Hendricks, E. W.; Lawler, John; Horne, Michael; Handler, R.; Swearingen, J. D.

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-83787-6_11

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…The fully-developed flow turbulence occurs when the Reynolds number (Re), a dimensionless term which is ratio of inertial to viscous forces, is greater than a critical value that is, Re > 4000. [16][17][18][19][20] These understandings have stipulated that the drag reduction of polymeric solutions was the inter-relation between Re and Wi parameter space (Figure S1). Wi can be defined as the Weissenberg number of a polymer, Wi = λ Â γ, where γ is flow shear rate and λ is polymer relaxation time.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigation on the influence of sulfonic substitution in polyacrylamides for minimizing drag in turbulent flow of slickwater fluids

Korlepara,

Patel,

Dilley

et al. 2023

J of Applied Polymer Sci

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The use of slickwater fluids for fracking is key for accessing unconventional shale/tight‐sand reservoirs. To mitigate the frictional losses observed during the injection, drag reducers like sulfonated polyacrylamides (SPAMs) are added to the slickwater fluids. The current study presents a unique controlled investigation that examines the impact of sulfonic group substitution, ranging from 5 to 25 wt%, in SPAMs. The molecular weight of the polymers is kept constant at ~7.5–7.8 million Daltons. The investigation is two‐pronged: first part is comprised of drag reduction (%DR) performance of the polymers in fluids of varying salinities on a laboratory flow‐loop. The results obtained indicated the inter‐dependence of fluid salinity and sulfonic substitution on the polymer performance; for example, %DR deterioration of SPAM with 5 wt% substitution was 24.7%; to the contrary, the deterioration was only 15.6% for SPAM with 25 wt% substitution with rise in fluid salinity from 150 ppm to 110 k ppm. The second part of study included in development of a physics‐based model where the polymer relaxation response (Weissenberg number) was improvised to accommodate the impact of governing parameters and then, successfully correlated with the %DR performance using phenomenological equations for the studied range of parameters.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%