Wax deposition model of heavy oil in pipeline transportation

Abstract

During the transportation process of heavy oil, wax deposition is prone to occur for the low temperature outside the tube and strong heat exchange, which will adversely affect the pipeline transportation of heavy oil. Based on the experimental data of the indoor deposition loop, this paper considered the impact of strong environmental heat transfer and oil flow shear on wax deposition and established a kinetic model of wax deposition for pipeline transportation of heavy oil. Numerical simulation was performed on the flow field and temperature field during the wax deposition process to obtain the model parameters. Through analyzing the deposition rate computed by the model, this paper reveals the effect of oil flow velocity, oil temperature and wall temperature difference on wax deposition.

Keywords

• pipe transportation
• wax deposition
• model
• numerical simulation