Drag reduction in transportation of hydrocarbon liquids: From fundamentals to engineering applications

Experimental methods and data treatment for evaluating efficiency of various drag reducing agents (DRA) for turbulent flows of crude oil are discussed. Besides shearing, elongation is employed as elasticity measure for dilute solutions with DRA. Relationship between structure of macromolecules and their efficiency as DRA for hydrocarbon liquids are discussed. Special attention is drawn to technological implementation of DRA starting from synthesis of ultra-long chain polymers through slurry preparation up to loading into the pipeline. Apart from conventional carbon-chain polymers, self-assembling supramolecules and surfactants are considered as promising DRAs for the future applications.