Analysis of dependencies for determination of friction head losses during pumping of oil with non-Newtonian properties

An important task of increasing the energy efficiency of pipeline transport of oil with non-Newtonian properties is to improve the methods of hydraulic calculation of oil pipelines taking into account the complexity of rheological models of such fluids. Obtaining theoretical formulas for friction head losses in turbulent regime is not possible due to the complexity of the turbulent flow structure, so the methodology of hydraulic calculation is based on experimentally obtained dependences. In the article the dependences of friction head loss at turbulent flow of non-Newtonian liquid are analysed on the example of calculation for pipelines of different diameter. As the pumped liquid was considered heavy highly solidified Mangyshlak oil, transported by the main oil pipeline Uzen – Atyrau – Samara. The obtained results show that with the increase of the pipeline diameter the calculation error according to the analysed dependences increases, which is justified by the fact that the indicated dependences are obtained on the basis of experimental studies conducted on pipelines of small diameters.