Characterization of drag reducing guar gum in a rotating disk flow

The turbulent drag reduction characteristics in a rotating disk apparatus were investigated by using polysaccharide guar gum in deionized water. The ultrasonic degradation method was adopted to obtain different molecular weight fractions of guar gum for this study. The stability of guar gum over time was observed to be better than the typical synthetic water‐soluble drag reducers [e.g., poly(ethylene oxide)]. A linear correlation between polymer concentration and the concentration/(drag reduction) for different molecular weights of guar gum was obtained, and the universal drag reduction curve for the guar gum/deionized water system was constructed.