Hybrid thermal lattice Boltzmann model to study the transportation of surfactants contaminated emulsions in parabolic flows

Oil produced from secondary and tertiary processes is mostly in the form of oil in water emulsions, which is an inherent characteristic of the extraction process itself. An attempt to optimize the factors contributing to the cost of transporting such mixtures from the fields to the processing facilities, seems to be very useful and cost effective. In this work, a thorough investigation of the factors influencing the rheology and transportation of emulsions in circular ducts such as temperature, volume fraction, flow driving pressure and surfactants concentration, is performed using a special Lattice Boltzmann model. A dimensionless power number ratio is presented and used for the assessment of the best practices leading to a more efficient emulsions transportation system.