Effect of Drag-Reducing Polymers on Tubing Performance Curve (TPC) in Vertical Gas-Liquid Flows

This paper discusses the effect of drag reducing polymers on the Tubing Performance Curve (TPC) of vertical air-water flows at near atmospheric conditions. The effect of polymer concentration, liquid and gas flow rates on the pressure drop curve (Tubing Performance Curve) was investigated experimentally. The results showed that polymers tend to reduce the interfacial roughness, which is counter productive in most cases as it increases the range where gravity dominates the flow. However, at higher gas rates, experiments suggest that lower the wall-liquid shear stress translates into a decrease in the pressure drop, making the use of polymers beneficial to extract early gas at a faster rate. These results can be explained by an analytical model. The derived understanding of the effect of polymers on 2-phase flows can be generalized to other flow regimes and holds promises as a valuable way to address other multiphase production issues.