Rheological behaviour of crude oil: Effect of temperature and seawater

Abstract

The effect of temperature and seawater on rheological behavior was investigated in this work for four samples of crude oil from Algerian Sahara. The Newtonian model was used to fit the shear stress dependence on the shear rate for temperature range between 20 and 100°C. The temperature increase leads to a decrease in the dynamic viscosity of crude oil. The temperature dependence of dynamic viscosity was fitted by the Walther equation. For crude oil emulsion, the Herschel-Bulkley model was used to fit the shear stress dependence on the shear rate for volume fraction of seawater between 30 and 70%. The increase in the volume fraction of seawater induces not only an increase in the yield stress and the consistency index of crude oil emulsions but also a decrease in the flow index of crude oil emulsions.