Sayeed Rushd

By Sayeed Rushd, Rasel A. Sultan and Shahriar Mahmud

In the lubricated pipe flow (LPF) of heavy oils, a water annulus acts as a lubricant and separates the viscous oil from the pipe wall. The steady state position of the annular water layer is in the high shear region. Significantly, lower pumping energy input is required than if the viscous oil was transported alone. An important challenge to the general application of LPF technology is the lack of a reliable model to predict frictional pressure losses. Although a number of models have been proposed to date, most of these models are highly system specific. Developing a reliable model to predict pressure losses in LPF is an open challenge to the research community. The current chapter introduces the concept of water lubrication in transporting heavy oils and discusses the methodologies available for modeling the pressure drops. It also includes brief descriptions of most important pressure loss models, their limitations, and the scope of future works.

Part of the book: Processing of Heavy Crude Oils

By Mahshad Pazouki and Sayeed Rushd

Oil-sand ore is a kind of heavy crude oil found primarily in Canada. The surface mining of this petroleum resource requires expensive 400-ton capacity trucks to transport the ore to the slurry plant. The slurry prepared with the crushed ore is usually conditioned in a hydrotransport pipeline prior to extracting bitumen. As the elimination of the mammoth trucks has a tremendous economic and environmental incentive, it is of industrial interest to employ new processes capable of conditioning oil-sand right at the mine face. This would demand an accelerated rate of conditioning compared to what is achieved at present in the industry. One of the significant steps of the conditioning process is oil-sand lump ablation (OSLA). An understanding of the fundamental concepts associated with OSLA is essential to achieve any industrial-scale change in the current conditioning method. A number of parameters such as temperature, lump size, pipe diameter, pipe length, flow rate, and shear influence the ablation process. The current chapter introduces the concept of OSLA. It also includes a comprehensive review of the most important models available to predict the ablation rate and the scope of future works.

Part of the book: Processing of Heavy Crude Oils