International Journal of Chemical and Petrochemical Technology (IJCPT) ISSN 2277-4807 Vol.

2, Issue 3 Dec 2012 1-8 TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.,

STRATEGIC POLYMER DRAG REDUCTION TECHNOLOGY FOR ENERGY CONSERVATION: MODIFICATION OF INJECTION SYSTEM FOR FLUID TRANSPORTATION THROUGH PIPELINE
BRAJESH KUMAR JHA1, M. J. YANJARAPPA2 & A. S. KHANNA1
1

Corrosion Science and Engineering, Department of Metallurgical Engineering & Materials Science, IIT Bombay, India
2

Dow Chemical India Pvt Ltd, Pune, India

ABSTRACT
Several industrial applications involving fluid transportation through pipelines, such as water, crude oil and hydrocarbons, turbulent friction causes significant reduction in flow rate, resulting in major energy loss. Polymer drag reduction technology is an efficient technique to minimize these losses without altering the pumping system. Injection of parts per million of polymer solution, can enhance the throughput of fluid up to 40% in pipeline. Due to undefined nature of turbulent flow, limitations of industrial function and dependency on parameters of drag reduction technique, strategic methodology of drag reduction technology can promote drag reduction efficiency significantly. In this study, percent drag reduction, using water soluble polymer was investigated in a single phage water pipeline with 10 meter long and 25.4 mm internal diameter. The result showed that the optimization of geometry of nozzle of polymer injection system influences drag reduction efficiency. Similar kind of results observed in two phage pipeline (air combined with water) by Williams et al., (1996) support optimization of injecting system which may influence drag reduction efficiency. Present study was based on optimization of geometry of polymer solution injecting nozzle and pressure in the injection vessel.

KEYWORDS: Pipelines, Drag Reduction, Water Soluble Polymer, Injection Method INTRODUCTION
During actual fluid flow in a pipeline, skin friction occurs in the boundary layer, near solid surfaces while the turbulence friction affects the bulk flow, which reduces flow velocity significantly. At higher flow velocity, this friction is of large magnitude, which causes high energy requirements of transporting fluid [1, 2, 3, and 4]. In 1930, most exciting discovery in the field of fluid mechanics was turbulent and skin friction can be reduced by the presence of additives in the flowing fluid [2]. In 1948, Toms recognized the tremendous reduction in operating pressure for turbulent flow by the addition of part per million (ppm) concentrations of long-chain polymers [2, 5, 6, and 7]. In this phenomenon, polymer solution minimizes the required pressure gradient per unit length of the fluid transporting pipeline to maintain the same flow rate [8, 9, 10, and 11]. After the innovation of drag reduction technology; it seems to be too early to expect this effect to be put into major practical value. It provides a significant reduction in energy requirement and offers several operational and tactical advantages [5]. This technology is economically attractive for numerous commercial, defense and research applications [4 and 10]. Drag reduction technology has several successful applications for transportation of water, crude oil and hydrocarbons, suspensions and slurries through pipelines. Other major applications are in the field of oil well operations, fire fighting, airplane tank filling, field irrigation, ship industry, marine systems (ocean thermal energy conversion systems) and many more [2, 3 and 10]. Several successful tests of this technology in pipelines have been reported, including transportation of crude oil, as in the cases of the Trans-Alaskan and Norwegian pipelines [4].The energy required during the oil well operation could be reduced by a factor of over five as compared with the use of water alone [12]. Irrigation pump can cover twice as much area with the presence of drag reducing polymer in the supply system

Brajesh Kumar Jha, M. J. Yanjarappa, A. S. Khanna

[13]. For filling fuel in the tanks of passenger planes, drag reducing polymers are being used which could take approximately half of the time as compared the fuel alone [14]. During fire-fighting operations, polymer drag reducer causes a considerable reduction in the pressure drop through the hose, and increases the volume of flow and enhances the range of water stream [15]. In an emergency, due to sudden increase in the capacity of sewage systems, use of drag reducing polymers can help to meet the high demand. Large urban agglomerations in India and China, find their sewer systems insufficient in the face of doubled or tripled populations. An alternative to digging out the entire municipal sewer system and replacing it by conduits with larger diameters, the use of drag reduction technology can continue to keep the sewage situation under control [3]. Drag reduction technology was discovered more the 60 year ago, the detailed mechanism and quantitative analysis of this technology is still not entirely understood [4 and 11]. It may be due to undefined nature of turbulent flow, factors of industrial system and dependency on parameters of drag reduction technology. Widely accepted theory of drag reduction phenomena is that both the viscoelastic property of polymer solutions (alignment and elongation of the polymer chains) and the interaction between polymer molecules and turbulence cause drag reduction [4, 11, and 16]. Effectiveness of drag reduction using water soluble polymer solution depends on several parameters such as flow induced extension of the polymer chains, polymer concentration, molecular weight, Reynolds Number (Re), solution preparation method, method of injection of polymer in the pipeline, thermodynamic conditions of the polymersolvent system, polymer stability in term of chemical and mechanical degradation and diameter of the pipeline [9, 11, 17 and 18]. There are no generalized guidelines for the selection of drag reduction water soluble polymers [10]. But understanding of technical challenges, limitations of drag reducing system and analysis of drag reduction phenomena according to the application may enhance the efficiency of drag reduction. Several studies for two phase pipeline flow system and recalculating water pipeline flow system have been previously investigated but very little work has been reported for single phase, once through horizontal pipeline flow system. The objective of this work was therefore to investigate the dependence of drag reduction efficiency on alternative polymer solution injection technique for transportation of fluid in pipeline. Experiments were performed to establish the dependence of drag reduction on polymer concentration and optimization of geometry of injection system and parameter of polymer injection system which can modify the turbulent flow pattern for low pumping energy requirements. Essential characteristics of polymer drag reduction were verified by a universal maximum drag reduction (MDR) asymptote.

EXPERIMENT
Materials Water soluble polymer, Poly-Acrylamide (PAM) with molar mass 4,000,000 g/mol was used in this study. Polymer solution (1000 Wppm) was made in tap water. The main transporting fluid, used for pipeline was tap water of Bombay Municipality Corporation (BMC), India. Polymer solution tank and injection nozzle was made by stainless steel. Instrumentation Each experiment in this study was conducted on single phase, once through horizontal flow pipeline as shown in Figure 1. The test section consists of a 10 meter long acrylic (allow visual observation) horizontal pipe with 25.4 mm internal diameter. Polymer solution (1000 Wppm) was injected in fully developed turbulent flow (downstream, 2 meter apart from pump) from the polymer solution tank into the pipeline which was controlled by flow meter. The first pressure tap (P1) was located at 4 meter downstream from the polymer injection point to make sure that the proper polymer solution mixed, fully developed turbulent flow [7 and 19]. Second pressure tap (P2) was located at 6 meter downstream from the

Strategic Polymer Drag Reduction Technology for Energy Conservation: Modification of Injection System for Fluid Transportation through Pipeline

polymer injection point. Pressure drop between these two points along the pipe (2 meter apart from each other) was monitored using differential pressure gauge. Water outlet of pipeline was located at 2 meter downstream from the second pressure tap to minimize the end effects on the observation of pressure drop between (P1) and (P2). Injection system consists of polymer solution tank made by stainless steel (50 liters) which was connected with air compressor to maintain a constant pressure in the polymer tank. Four different kinds of geometry of polymer injection nozzles were studied. First injection nozzle involved the use of three holes with 3 mm diameter that was oriented in the vertical and plus minus 150 from the vertical as shown in Figure 2. Second nozzle involved the use of single hole with 3 mm diameter. Third nozzle involved the use of three holes with 1 mm diameter that was oriented same as the first injection nozzle. Fourth nozzle was single hole with 1 mm diameter. The flow meter, injection system, and differential pressure gauge were calibrated before every experiment. Measurements of percent drag reduction (% DR) were carried out using a well known equation 1.

eq.1

eq.2 Where p is the pressure drop in the absence and pdra is the pressure drop in the presence of drag reducing

polymer at distance x. Friction factor (f) of polymer drag reduction was measured using equation 2. Where d is pipe dimeter, x is the distance between two points at which pressure drop was recorded for each experiment and is the density of test fluid. U is the observed flow rate [6 and 19].

Figure 1: Schematic of experimental set-up.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Drag reduction behavior of polymer solutions (PAM) has been studied to measures the changes in drag reduction as a function of concentration and parameters of polymer injection system in a turbulent flow. Investigations were carried

Brajesh Kumar Jha, M. J. Yanjarappa, A. S. Khanna

out to understand the effect of polymer concentration, geometry of the injection nozzle and pressure of injecting polymer system. Figure 2 shows that the variation of drag reduction with the polymer concentration by four different kind of injection nozzle geometry at a constant injection pressure of 15 psi. Results showed that the % DR increases with increasing polymer concentration in all cases [6]. However, the highest % DR was achieved by using injection nozzle of 1 mm diameter with three holes system. Lowest % DR was achieved by using injection nozzle of 3 mm diameter with one hole system. Results showed that geometry of injection system play important role on efficiency of % DR. This can be explained on the basis that the polymer, being injected by three hole systems form a symmetrical polymer film around the pipeline inner circumference, while single hole system create disturbance wave and unable to form such uniform film. In the both case (three hole and one hole injection system geometry), % DR reduces with increasing polymer injection nozzle diameter. In order to verify the effect of disturbance wave in all nozzle geometry, the tests were carried out at higher polymer injection pressure. These results are shown in Figure 3 which showed that the % DR decreases with increasing injection pressure in all geometry of injection nozzle. At high pressure, polymer injection may become centerline oriented rather than inner wall oriented of pipeline. Centerline oriented polymer injection must create disturbance wave under turbulent flow condition. Similar kind of results was reported by Williams et al., (1996) on optimization of injecting system for two phage systems [7]. K. Kim et al., (2007) also reported that wall oriented polymer injection may promote drag reduction in recalculating water channel flow [20]. These results support optimization of geometry of polymer injection system improve the efficiency of polymer drag reduction technology for fluid transportation in pipeline. An essential characteristic of polymer drag reduction was established from above results by the development of universal maximum drag reduction (MDR) asymptote (PK plot). PK coordinates are a natural way of presenting drag reduction in pipe flow as the ordinate represents the ratio of bulk fluid velocity to the turbulent friction velocity, and the abscissa is a ratio of pipe to turbulent length scales [19]. Effect of change in fluid velocity profile using 1mm diameter with three holes nozzle and 3mm diameter with one hole nozzle are shown in PK Plot (Figure 4). All polymer drag reduction fluid velocity profile results falls within the polymeric regime (or in between Newtonian (PK line) and the MDR asymptote (MDR line)). Improvement of fluid velocity profile (1/f) was highest in the case of 1mm diameter with three holes nozzle system correctly matches with above percent drag reduction results as shown in Figure 2. It shows that PAM solution follow the characteristic of polymer drag reduction phenomena correctly with the limitations of experimental parameters.

Strategic Polymer Drag Reduction Technology for Energy Conservation: Modification of Injection System for Fluid Transportation through Pipeline

Figure 2: Plot of % DR Versus Concentration of Polymer Solution and Polymer Film Distribution in Pipeline Using 3 Holes and 1 Hole Injection Nozzle.

Figure 3: Plot of % DR Versus Pressure (psi) of Polymer Injection Systems.

Figure 4: PK Plot for Drag Reduction Asymptote of 10 Wppm at 15 psi of PAM.

Brajesh Kumar Jha, M. J. Yanjarappa, A. S. Khanna

CONCLUSIONS
The % DR increases with increases in polymer concentration. The geometry of the injection nozzle influences the % DR. A 1 mm diameter with three holes injection nozzle showed highest % DR at injection pressure 15 psi, results in a symmetrical polymer film formation around the pipeline inner circumference. Increases in polymer injection pressure create disturbance wave which reduces % DR.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors are thankful to Dow Chemical India Pvt. Ltd for sponsoring this project. The authors are also thankful to Vedang Singh Chauhan for technical support and team member of Dow Chemical (Arun Basrur and Vijay Ramakrishnan) for valuable advice.

REFERENCES
1. Gasljevic K. & Matthys E. F. (2009). Friction and heat transfer in drag-reducing surfactant solution flow through curved pipes and elbows. European Journal of Mechanics B/Fluids, 28, 641650. 2. Shenoy A. V. (1984). A Review on drag reduction with special reference to micellar systems. Colloid & Polymer Sci., 262, 319-337. 3. Brostow Witold (2008). Drag reduction in flow: Review of applications, mechanism and prediction. Journal of Iindustrial and Engineering Chemistry, 14, 409-416. 4. Sunga J. H., Kima C. A., Choi H. J., Hur B. K., Kimc J. G. & Jhond M. S. (2005). Turbulent drag reduction efficiency and mechanical degradation of poly (acryl-amid). Journal of Macromolecular Science, Part B, Volume 43, 2, 507 518. 5. 6. Toms B. A. (1949). Proceedings of international congress on rheology. North Holland, Amsterdam, 2, 135. Mowla D. & Naderi A. (2006). Experimental study of drag reduction by a polymeric additive in slug two-phase flow of crude oil and air in horizontal pipes. Chemical Engineering Science, 6, 115491554. 7. Al-Sarkhi A. & Hanratty T. J. (2001). Effect of drag reducing polymers on annular gas-liquid flow in a horizontal pipe. International Journal of Multiphase Flow, 27, 1151-1162. 8. Choi Hyoung J. & Jhon Myung S. (1996). Polymer-induced turbulent drag reduction. Ind.Eng.Chem.Res, 35, 2993-2998. 9. Den Toonder J. M. J., Draad A. A., Kuiken G. D. C. & Nieuwstadt F. T. M. (1995). Degradation effects of dilute polymer solutions on turbulent drag reduction in pipe flows. Applied Scientific Research, 55, 63-82. 10. Morgan Sarah E. and McCormick Charles L. (1990). Water-soluble copolymers macromolecular drag reduction A Review of predictive theories and the effects of polymer structure. Polymer Science, 15, 507-549. 11. Nakken T., Tande M. & Bo Nystrom (2004). Effect of molar mass, concentration and thermodynamic conditions on polymer-induced ow drags reduction. European Polymer Journal, 40, 181186. 12. Pruitt G.T., Simmons CM & Neill GH (1964). HR Crawford. SPE Paper No. 997 13. Elias V., Vocel J. & Vodohospodarskyeas (1978). SAV, 26: 610. 14. Burger E. D., Chorn L. G. & Perkins T. K. (1980). J. Rheol, 24: 603. 15. Thorne P.F., Theobald C.R. & Mahendran P. (1975). Fire Res. station, Borchamwood, England. Fire Res. Notes, 1033-1043. 16. Sher I. & Hetsroni G. (2008). A mechanistic model of turbulent drag reduction by additives. Chemical Engineering Science, 63, 17711778.

Strategic Polymer Drag Reduction Technology for Energy Conservation: Modification of Injection System for Fluid Transportation through Pipeline

17. Shetty Abhishek M., Solomon Michael J. (2009). Aggregation in dilute solutions of high molar mass poly(ethylene)oxide and its effect on polymer turbulent drag reduction. Polymer, 50, 261270 18. Amarouchene Y., Bonn D., Kellay H., Lo T. S., Lvov Victor S. & Procaccia I. (2008). Reynolds number dependence of drag reduction by rod like polymers. Physics of Fluids, 20, 65-118 19. Elbing B. R., Winkel E. S., Solomon M. J. & Ceccio S. L. (2009). Degradation of homogeneous polymer solutions in high shear turbulent pipe flow. Exp Fluid. 47,1033-1044. 20. Kim K. & Sirviente A. I. (2007). Wall versus centerline polymer injection in turbulent channel flows. Flow Turbulence Combust 78, 6989.