Electrorheology Improves Transportation of Crude Oil

A system to simulate crude oil flow in pipeline is established in the authors' lab. The system measures the crude oil flow rate with and without the electric field treatment. With this system, it is demonstrated that the crude oil flow rate is increased by about 20% after an electric field of 12,000 V/cm is applied in the direction parallel to the flow direction. The electric energy for this electric field treatment is very small and oil temperature is almost unchanged. The electrorheology-induced thinning effect will have significant application in crude oil pipeline transportation.