Investigation of non-Newtonian flow characterization and rheology of heavy crude oil

The heavy crude oil exhibits a non-Newtonian shear thinning behavior over the examined shear rate. The viscosity of the heavy crude oil decreases about 15.6% when the temperature increased from 30 to 60°C. Heavy crude oil was blended with the aqueous solution of surfactant and saline water in different volumetric proportions of NaCl, and Na2CO3 solution mixtures. The addition of 50% of the mixture to the heavy crude oil causes a strong reduction in the viscosity, about 67.5% at 60°C. The heavy crude oil fits the Power law model since it has the lowest average absolute percent error of 0.0291. The flow behavior index of the heavy crude oil reaches a value of 0.9305 at a temperature of 30°C and it increases to 0.9373 when the temperature raises 60°C, while the consistence coefficient decreases from 2.8811 to 2.3558.