Abstract:

Two series of water-in-oil emulsions with different droplet size distributions were prepared by using Bohai SZ36-1 oilfield heavy crude oil and mineral water.The effects of temperature, water volume fraction, shear rate and droplet average diameter on emulsion viscosity were studied.The results showed that temperature had a great impact on apparent viscosity of emulsion, but seemingly little impact on relative viscosity.Water volume fraction, shear rate and droplet average diameter were also important factors affecting viscosity.At a low water volume fraction, shear rate and droplet average diameter’s effect could be ignored, however, when water volume fraction increased, their effects will be greatly enhanced and W/O emulsion showed strong shearing-thin behavior.Some published viscosity prediction models were evaluated by using data from the experiment, and the Brinkman (1952) model was found to be the best.