Study on the prediction method of thixotropy of water-in-oil waxy crude oil emulsions

The thixotropy of water-in-waxy crude emulsion is the basic data used for flow safety studies of oil-water mixed pipelines. This work studied the shearing rate of a water-in-waxy crude oil emulsion under constant shear stress loading conditions. A relative shear rate was defined. A prediction method was developed to estimate the thixotropy of a waxy crude oil emulsion under constant shear stress loading conditions. The method only requires the thixotropy data of 3 water content emulsions and dehydrated crude oil, it can estimate the thixotropic characteristics of the oil-water-waxy crude oil emulsion of any volume of water content.

Automated summary

This study investigated the shearing rate of water-in-waxy crude oil emulsion under constant shear stress loading conditions and developed a prediction method to estimate the thixotropy of the emulsion. The method only requires thixotropy data of three water content emulsions and dehydrated crude oil, making it applicable for any volume of water content in the oil-water-waxy crude oil emulsion.