Feasibility of using a hydrocyclone as a core annular flow promoter in vertical pipes . an experimental investigation

The shortage of new light oil deposits has led to the exploration of heavy oil reserves, which exceed 400 billion barrels not yet produced in the world. However, the transportation and refining of heavy oil are very expensive. Due to this, chemical and petrochemical industries are looking for technologies to reduce operating costs. The concept of flowing oil through a core annular flow pattern is one of the most promising techniques to reduce power consumption during the transport of viscous fluids in pipelines. In this work, a hydrocyclone device was employed to promote a core annular pattern in a vertical section of an experimental bench using different compositions of an oil-water mixture. To evaluate the efficiency of the hydrocyclone, a flow fractionator device was installed at the end of the pipeline loop and had the objective of separating the entire flow into two sections: annular and core. The obtained data showed that the hydrocyclone attended the proposal of organizing the biphasic flow towards a core annular pattern, reducing in about 70 % the amount of oil in the annular section for low oil concentration mixtures as low as 20 %.