NEWTONIAN AND NON-NEWTONIAN FLOW IN STRAIGHT AND CURVED PIPES

The understanding of the behavior of drag reducing polymer additives is critical especially for the oil and gas industry. Besides water pipingmany other fluids are being transported through pipes such as petroleum, sludge, drilling mud and chemicals that are of various viscosities and shear stress range which affects flow performance. Consequently in this study, the drag reducing ability of several rigid, non-rigid polymers and biopolymers are evaluated in a flow loop with circular straight and curved pipe sections, Xanthan gum, Hydrolyzed polyacrylamide and Banana peel polymer are evaluated in terms of mechanical degradation resistance, drag reducing ability and rheological properties experimentally via pressure-drop measurements and rheometry. The laminar, transitional and turbulent flow regimes of the polymers, wherever achievable are evaluated and compared to a Newtonianfluid,UTP tap water.