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Effects of crude oil-water emulsions at various water-cut on the performance

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Article  in  International Journal of Oil Gas and Coal Technology · January 2017

DOI: 10.1504/IJOGCT.2017.10006355

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Int. J. Oil, Gas and Coal Technology, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2017 71

Effects of crude oil-water emulsions at various

water-cut on the performance of the centrifugal pump

Sayed A. Bellary, Md. Hamid Siddique,

Abdus Samad* and Jitendra S. Sangwai
Department of Ocean Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Madras,
Chennai-600036, Tamil Nadu, India
Email: ibellary@gmail.com
Email: hamidsiddique3@gmail.com
Email: samad@iitm.ac.in
Email: jitendrasangwai@iitm.ac.in
*Corresponding author

Bohyun Chon
Department of Energy Resources Engineering,
Energy Resources Fusion Technology Research Center,
INHA University,
Incheon, Korea
Email: bochon@inha.ac.kr

Abstract: The viscosity of the oil-in-water or water-in-oil depends on the

water-cut (WC) present in the system. At a certain WC, the water-crude oil
emulsion gives the highest viscosity, showing phase inversion, at which the
performance of a centrifugal pump drops. In this article, experimental and
analytical investigations have been carried out to study the performance of a
centrifugal pump for the crude oil-water emulsion systems prepared by mixing
crude oil obtained from an Indian oil field and water. The viscosities of the
emulsions having different WC were recorded and a phase inversion point
within 60%–70% WC range was obtained. During testing of the pump,
emulsion samples were collected and stability of the emulsions was
determined. A performance study on the centrifugal pump has been carried out
using various samples of the emulsions. The study shows that the increasing
WC reduces the pump performance till the phase inversion point. It has been
observed that the quality crude oil and the emulsion affect the performance of
the centrifugal pump. [Received: February, 15 2016; Accepted: March 28,
2016]

Keywords: artificial lift; phase inversion; pump performance; water-cut; WC;

water-crude oil emulsion.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Bellary, S.A.,

Siddique, M.H., Samad, A., Sangwai, J.S. and Chon, B. (2017) ‘Effects of
crude oil-water emulsions at various water-cut on the performance of the
centrifugal pump’, Int. J. Oil, Gas and Coal Technology, Vol. 16, No. 1,
pp.71–88.

Copyright © 2017 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

72 S.A. Bellary et al.

Biographical notes: Sayed A. Bellary is a PhD student in the Department of

Ocean Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. His past
research includes design and optimisation, centrifugal pump impeller and
surface roughness.

Md. Hamid Siddique is a PhD student in the Department of Ocean Engineering

at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He is working on design and
optimisation of centrifugal pump impeller for various applications. He holds an
MTech degree from the Indian School of Mines Dhanbad, where he worked on
the flow assurance problem, i.e., study of wax deposition in the flowlines due
to Indian crude oil.

Abdus Samad is an Associate Professor in the Department of Ocean

Engineering at the IIT Madras. He works on fluid machinery, optimisation and
marine renewable energy. He is teaching petroleum and marine engineering
subjects. He has contributed approximately 100 articles in different journals
and conferences. He has filed several patents. He is the recipient of an award
from the Institute of Engineers, India. He received several fellowships from
different governmental organisations.

Jitendra S. Sangwai is currently working as an Associate Professor in the

Department of Ocean Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Madras
(IIT Madras), Chennai, India. He received his MTech and PhD in Chemical
Engineering from IIT Kharagpur and IIT Kanpur, respectively. He worked with
Schlumberger for a brief period before moving to academics. He has published
around 55 papers in international journals and 60 papers in conferences. He has
filed ten Indian patents and eight international patents. He is a recipient of
Young Faculty Recognition Award for excellence in teaching and research
from IITM (2014), six invention awards from Intellectual Ventures, SPE Travel
Grant Award and SPE Regional Service Award (2015).

Bohyun Chon is a Professor in the Department of Energy Resources

Engineering at Inha University and teaches courses on petroleum engineering,
which comprehensively includes well logging, reservoir engineering and oil
property evaluation. He became the Director of the University Energy
Resources Fusion Technology Center in 2010 and, in February 2015, was
additionally appointed as the Non-Executive Director on the board of the Korea
National Oil Corporation (KNOC). Prior to accepting the professorship at Inha
in 1991, he worked as the KNOC’s Chief Petroleum Engineer. He received his
BS in Mineral and Petroleum Engineering from Seoul National University and
MS and PhD in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University.

1 Introduction

The artificial lifts (ALs) use external power to lift crude oil/water from the wellbore to
the surface. Various ALs techniques, such as gas lift, electrical submersible pump (ESP)
etc., are available, and are widely used for pumping fluid from mature reservoirs. ALs are
used when reservoir pressure depletes and the natural flow ceases to exist. Single stage or
multistage centrifugal pumps are widely used in petroleum industries. The ESPs used are
typically multistage centrifugal pumps. Entrainment of water or evolution of gas from oil
is very common in a producing well and handling the mixed fluid for pumping using ALs
 Effects of crude oil-water emulsions at various water-cut 73

is one of the challenging tasks experienced by the oil and gas industries. This causes due
to the pump characteristic changes under multiphase flow condition than in single-phase
flow.
There are ample works available in the literatures on numerical and experimental
works on centrifugal pumps (Vieira et al., 2015; Trevisan and Prado, 2011; Hanafizadeh
et al., 2011; Zhou and Sachdeva, 2010; Li, 2000). A complicated situation arises if the
pump delivers multiphase fluid. Normally, gas entrainment has an adverse effect and four
liquid/air flow patterns inside the impeller channels, such as agglomerated bubbles, gas
pockets, segregated gas, and Trevisan and Prado (2011) have reported intermittent gas.
Agglomerated bubble pattern is responsible for the initial head degradation. It has been
concluded that an increase in the viscosity of fluid causes surging at low void fractions.
Zhang et al. (2015) investigated the flow in a rotodynamic multiphase pump and
evaluated the pump performance based on two indexes; namely, gas-liquid two-phase and
distributed law for the bubble size.
There are a few articles available on two-phase flows consisting of different viscosity
liquids and gas inside the impeller passage (Banjar et al., 2013). However, these studies
did not include the liquid-liquid interaction. A few authors (Hammoud et al., 2010;
Morales et al., 2012) have reported the studies on the liquid-liquid multi component flow.
Hammoud et al. (2010) investigated the change in pump performance during handling of
the oil-water flow using different oil concentrations ranging from 0% to 15%. They
observed that the head and the efficiency decreases with increase in oil concentration.
Morales et al. (2012) studied droplet formation in oil-water flow through a centrifugal
pump using experimental and theoretical investigations. They observed that the pump
speed has a significant effect on the droplet size distribution; whereas the mixture flow
rate and the water-cut (WC) have the least influence on the droplet size distribution of the
inlet stream. Compared to liquid-gas flow study in pumps, there is a limited amount of
work done for crude oil and water emulsion. The crude oil is non-transparent and hence
flow visualisation is not so easy.
With increasing use of enhanced oil recovery techniques including water flooding, the
production of water with crude oil is very common phenomenon, leading to the formation
of crude oil-water emulsion. Drilling, production, transportation and processing of crude
oils helps forming emulsions (Langevin et al., 2004). Water-oil mixtures can be classified
as stable, mesostable, unstable and entrained water, of which only stable and mesostable
states can be called as emulsions (Fingas and Filedhouse, 2004). Stability of emulsion is
due to the presence of asphaltene and resin contents, as well as the difference in
viscosities of two phases (Gafonava and Yarranton, 2001; Fingas and Filedhouse, 2004).
Langevin et al. (2004) studied the surface rheology of emulsion, which plays an
important role in a variety of dynamic processes. Crude oil composition responsible for
emulsion formation is due to surface-active agents, such as lightweight fatty acids,
naphthenic acids and asphaltenes. The effective viscosity of the emulsion depends mainly
on the volume fraction of dispersed phase and temperature, along with several minor
effects, such as shear rate, average droplet size, droplet size distribution, viscosity and
density of oil (Farah et al., 2005).
As stated earlier, the crude oil sample is not transparent, so due to the lack of
information on their properties, the data required for CFD analysis is limited and has not
yet been reported in the open literature. CFD needs data on the bubble size, bubble
74 S.A. Bellary et al.

distribution, etc., at more dynamic conditions. The most complex flow situation occurs in
the turbomachinery flow. In-spite of this, some articles do present studies on the crude
water mixed flow through pumps, which are not complete in the conclusions (Yaqob and
Abbas; 2009, Hammoud et al., 2010). Hammoud et al. (2010) reported that oil-in-water
(o/w) emulsion flow reduces the head, flow rate and hydraulic efficiency of the pump, but
their studies do not include the effect of the emulsion stability on the pump performance.
Many researchers have studied the effect viscosity on pump (Stepanoff, 1958; Li,
2000; Tuzson, 2000; Gulich, 2003; Bellary et al., 2014). Mechanical losses, impeller
losses, leakage losses, disc friction losses are the major losses which affect the
performance of pump and all external losses such as mechanical losses, disk friction
losses are the important losses.
Studies on the performance of centrifugal pump handling w/o and o/w emulsions are
essential for the design, selection, and operation of the centrifugal pump used in the oil
and gas industry. Despite the importance of such emulsion flows, the same has not been
explored and investigated extensively. The behaviour of centrifugal pump at off-design
points lead to the development of better design of pump to handle crude oil water
emulsion. Only few researchers (Kendoush et al., 2006; Khalil et al., 2008; Yaqob and
Abbas, 2009) have demonstrated the behaviour of the water-oil two-phase flow through a
pump. Hence, understanding the effect of emulsion on the pump performance is
necessary for multiphase flow optimisation for oilfield operation. Indeed, the information
on the efficiency of centrifugal pump for crude-oil emulsion transportation is not well
studied in an open literature and need investigations.
The present work reports experimental study to understand the performance of
centrifugal pump while pumping crude oil emulsions having different WC. Formation of
water-oil emulsions and its properties with respect to time at different WC and their
effect on the performance of the centrifugal pump has been reported. The effects of phase
inversion and viscosity change, and stability of emulsion have been studied and
presented.

2 Experimental setup

2.1 Materials pump facility and test conditions

A closed loop setup of a centrifugal pump having five backward-swept blades impeller
and an unvaned single volute casing of circular cross section were used in this study as
shown on Figure 1. The rotational and the specific speeds were 1,340 rpm (= N) and
85 (= Nsp), respectively. Total head was 5.05 m (= H) at design mass flow rate of

2.171 kg/s( = mdes). The dimensions of the pump are tabulated in Table 1. The pump
has single axial suction and spiral volute casing. The impeller blades follow double
curvature arc geometry with a constant blade thickness (= 3 mm).
The pumping fluid used in the experiment was light crude oil procured from Karaikal
oil field located in the southern part of India. Table 2 represents the crude oil properties
obtained after performing saturate, aromatic, resin and asphaltene (SARA) analysis.
Further, water has been mixed with the crude oil in certain ratio and pumped.
 Effects of crude oil-water emulsions at various water-cut 75

Figure 1 Line diagram of the experimental test facility used in this work

1 Tank 2 Gate valve

3 Suction pressure gauge 4 Suction line
5 Pump 6 Motor
7 Delivery pressure gauge 8 Flow control valve
9 Delivery line 10 Flowmeter

Table 1 Dimensions of the centrifugal pump

Parameter Dimension
Shaft diameter, Ds 24 mm
Inlet blade width, b1 23 mm
Outlet blade width, b2 10 mm
Inlet blade angle at shroud, β1shr 11o
Inlet blade angle at shroud, β1hub 31°
Outlet blade angle, β2 36o
Blade number, z 5
Outlet diameter, D2 142 mm
Base circle diameter of volute casing, D3 147 mm
Volute width at base circle, b3 15 mm
Suction pipe diameter, Dsuc 50 mm
Delivery pipe diameter, Ddel 32 mm

Table 2 Properties of the crude oil sample

Properties Values
Density, kg/m3 805
API gravity, °API 44.3
Viscosity, cP 2.47
Asphaltenes, % 3.26
76 S.A. Bellary et al.

Table 2 Properties of the crude oil sample (continued)

Properties Values
Resins, % 7.6
Aromatics, % 28.92
Saturates, % 59.8
R/A 2.33

The experimental facility was installed sin the Department of Ocean Engineering of IIT
Madras and is shown in Figure 2. Two differential pressure gauges with an accuracy of
±1% were used to measure the pump head. Flow rate was regulated by means of a needle
valve located between the pump outlet and the flow-meter. The flow rate was measured
by a turbine type flow-meter located at a distance of ten times of delivery pipe diameter
in the discharge line from the reservoir. A variable frequency drive (VFD) was used to
control the rotational speed (N) of the pump through a three-phase DC-motor. The
change in pressure at the suction and the delivery sides at different flow rates was
recorded. The input power was measured by the motor input voltage and current
measurement. The motor losses were included during calculation.

Figure 2 Centrifugal pump test facility developed at IIT Madras (see online version for colours)

Relevant relations to calculate the head, the power input to the shaft and the pump
efficiency are given below. Pump head was measured by a pressure gauge at outlet and
inlet, i.e.,
P2 − P1
H= (1)
ρg

Hydraulic efficiency is given by,

H ac H th − ΔH
η= = (2)
H th H th
Following relation was used to calculate input power to the pump by measuring input
voltage and current from energy meter including motor losses:
 Effects of crude oil-water emulsions at various water-cut 77

M in = 3 × EI cos φ × ηmotor (3)

The output power was determined by:

M out = ρgHQ (4)

Then pump efficiency was determined by:

M out
η pump = (5)
M in
The existing viscosity correction factor (ANSI/HI 9.6.7, 2004) has been used to
determine the performance of the pump to handle viscous fluid if water is a working
fluid. The expressions are:
H = CH H w (6)

Q = CQ Qw (7)

η = Cη ηw (8)

where Q, H and η are the flow rate, head, and efficiency of the pump for handling viscous
fluid and Qw, Hw, and ηw are the flow rate, head, and efficiency of water. CQ, CH, and Cη
are the correction factors, respectively. The correction factors in Table 3 were obtained
from ANSI/HI 9.6.7 (2004) chart and the head was obtained using viscosity values at
30%, 50%, 60% and 70% water cut. A comparison has been made to show the suitability
of the above correction factor.
Table 3 Viscosity correction factor for head, discharge and efficiency

Viscosity of emulsion, cP CH CQ Cη
4.5 1.0 0.96 0.88
7.6 1.0 0.94 0.82
21.1 1.0 0.83 0.54
42.5 0.95 0.66 0.34

2.2 Experimental procedure

Initially the centrifugal pump was primed and run with a pure crude oil sample having no
WC (WC = 0). The shaft input power along with the suction pressure, delivery pressure
and the flow rate was recorded. The tests were conducted at different flow rates to obtain
performance curve for the pure crude oil sample at a constant pump speed of 1,340 rpm.
Then, the same procedure was followed for WC = 10% to 90 %, and pure water to obtain
the performances at various WCs.

2.3 Bottle test and viscosity measurement

Bottle testing is the preferred method to analyse the effectiveness of a de-emulsifier to
separate oil and water from the emulsion (Kokal, 2008). Here, eight bottles of 500 ml
each were taken for a screening test. Samples were stirred at 1,340 rpm to prepared
78 S.A. Bellary et al.

different WC samples, and placed on a flat table for observations as shown in Figure 3.
For the viscosity measurement, the same samples from the different bottles were taken
and stirred again at 1,340 rpm for 5 min before measuring it in a Grace M-3600
Viscometer. The viscosity values at a shear rate of 1,021 s–1 were recorded. Viscosity at
higher shear rate (1,021 s–1) is reported here as this gives stable emulsion. These
conditions also mimic the actual production conditions at well-bore or surface facilities.

Figure 3 Bottle test carried for emulsion stability test, (a) short-term stability (b) long-term
stability (see online version for colours)

(a)

(b)

3 Results and discussion

In this effort, two studies have been carried out: water-crude oil emulsion study and
investigations on the pump performance under different WC. Initially, emulsions of the
 Effects of crude oil-water emulsions at various water-cut 79

crude oil and water have been prepared and tested for its contents. The same emulsion
systems with water-oil ratios were used to test the performance of the centrifugal pump to
deliver emulsions. An experimental laboratory facility was developed for the
pump experiments. The results of the emulsion and the pump tests were discussed
below.

3.1 Evaluation of WC on the apparent viscosity

Figure 3 shows the stability of the emulsions with increasing period. The crude oil
emulsion is found to be highly unstable above WC > 70% and the water phase starts
separating within 3 minutes. Similarly, the emulsions at WC 40%–70% show stability up
to 60 minutes. The emulsion at WC 10%–40% remains stable and does not separate out
even after 48 hours. There are different parameters responsible for the formation of stable
or unstable emulsions like viscosity and density of continuous and dispersed phase,
volume fraction of dispersed phase, droplet size distribution and the composition of the
crude oil. The other parameters which are also responsible are shear rate, system
temperature, behaviour and concentration of emulsifying agents, and presence of solids in
dispersed phase, etc., significantly affects the apparent viscosity of emulsions (Johnsen
and Rønningsen, 2003).
Figure 4 shows the apparent viscosity of emulsions formed at various WC. It is
observed that the viscosity of emulsion increases with increasing WC. At about
WC = 62%, phase inversion is observed and w/o emulsion changes to o/w emulsion, and
the viscosity falls sharply. Such variation of viscosity of the emulsion is expected to
affect the performance of the centrifugal pump, which has been discussed later in this
article. A comparison of relative viscosity obtained in this study was made with the result
obtained by some previous authors (Yaghi, 2007; Pal, 2014) as shown in Figure 5. The
previous authors did not investigate the phase inversion point and presented results only
for W/O emulsion, but phase inversion from W/O to O/W emulsion has been obtained in
this study. In the present investigation, the emulsions without an external emulsifying
agent are observed to be coarse as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 4 Apparent viscosity of the emulsions at different WC

60
Phase inversion

40
W/O emuslion O/W emulsion

μa

20

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1

WC
80 S.A. Bellary et al.

Figure 5 Experimental data generated in this work and compared with literature data
20
Exp (this work)

16 Yaghi (2007) (Exp)

Pal (2014) (Exp)
12
µr
8

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
WC

Figure 6 A sample of coarse and unsteady emulsion (see online version for colours)

In O/W region, a downturn in the viscosity has been observed because the volume
concentration of the dispersed phase increases with the increase in WC. These dispersed
droplets attract the surfactant molecules on the droplet surface and, thereby, the oil phase
molecules adhere to the droplet surface known as hydration effect. The increase in
hydration effect results in droplet coalescence and flocculation, which captures a part of
oil phase leading to an increase in the effective internal phase volume fraction. In
addition, with an increase in the water volume fraction, the coalescence increases as the
droplet size gets increased. However, the o/w emulsions remain stable for 1–48 h
(Figure 3) depending upon the presence of naturally occurring surfactant in the crude oil.
Asphaltenes and sediments, etc., in crude oil act as the natural surfactants to form stable
emulsions (Dicharry et al., 2006).
From SARA analysis results, 3.26% asphaltene was obtained in the crude oil sample,
which indicates its heavy nature. The presence of asphaltene in the crude oil indicates its
ability to form stable emulsions with water as asphaltene acts as surfactants (Ali and
Alqam, 2000). In addition, the R/A ratio affects the emulsion stability (Spiecker et al.,
2003; Ali and Alqam, 2000).
 Effects of crude oil-water emulsions at various water-cut 81

3.2 Performance curves

Once the emulsion properties were obtained, the same crude oil emulsion samples with
the same WC were prepared to test the performance of the pump. Since the flooded
condition was used in the experiment so, priming of the pump for initial running was not
required. The pump was started with the valve at the fully open position and then the
valve was gradually closed to control the flow rate of the fluid. The VFD was used to
control motor speed and the other electronic equipments were used to measure required
parameters.
Initially, the performance of the pump using water was obtained. The water is then
replaced with crude oil to obtain performance of the pump using pure crude oil. Further
experiments were done using emulsion samples with varying WC from 10% to 90% at
10% intervals. As the pump circulates the crude oil-water mixture, emulsions were
formed, which ultimately affected the performance curves of the pump.
Figures 7 to 8 shows the pump performance curves for emulsion systems with
different WC and at different flow rates. In Figure 7, the efficiency and the head show
downward slopes for WC < 60%, thereafter sudden upward slopes have been noticed. It
is noteworthy that the apparent viscosity continuously increases for WC < 62%, but a
sudden decrease in trend is observed for WC > 62% (Figure 4). The reason for the
increase in viscosity with WC has been explained in Section 3.1.

Figure 7 Variation of mass flow rate, head, input power and efficiency of the pump at different
water cut

ṁ H Min η

6 200

5 160
4
120
ṁ Min
H 3 η
80
2

1 40

0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100
WC

Figure 8(a) shows that the head decreases as the viscosity of the o/w emulsion increases.
Skin friction, eddy formation, disc friction losses along the path of fluid flow through the
pump, are responsible for the head drop (Ippen, 1946; Gulich, 2010; Bellary et al., 2014).
Figure 8(b) explains that the power consumption by pump is least for 100% crude oil
because of the minimum density of the crude oil. An increase in WC gives the higher
emulsion density (a dense oil droplet distribution) and hence, the power consumption
increases. For 60% < WC < 100%, consumption of the power input to the shaft increases
gradually with WC. Once it reaches 60% WC, the torque losses are found to be more due
to the tangential shear developed by the rotation of the pump ring within the stationary
housing ring. This is because the o/w emulsion at 62% WC attained the highest viscosity
(Ippen, 1946).
82 S.A. Bellary et al.

Figure 8 Head, EFF and power for different WC, (a) head vs. flow rate (b) power input vs. flow
rate (c) efficiency vs. flow rate
Crude oil Water 10% WC
20% WC 30% WC 40% WC
50% WC 60% WC 70% WC
80% WC 90% WC
8

H
4

0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
ṁ

(a)
Crude oil Water 10% WC
20% WC 30% WC 40% WC
50% WC 60% WC 70% WC
190

Min
160

130
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
ṁ

(b)

Crude Oil water 10% WC 20% WC

30% WC 40% WC 50% WC 60% WC

70% WC 80% WC 90% WC

60

η
40

20

0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
ṁ

(c)
 Effects of crude oil-water emulsions at various water-cut 83

It is well known fact that the increase in hydraulic losses due to increase in viscosity
always leads to decrease in efficiency. Equation (2) clearly supports for the reduction in
the efficiency for greater hydraulic losses. Also, the power input to the shaft increases
with the increase in viscosity. The reason for this is already explained. Equation (5)
shows that increase in input power to the shaft, decreases the pump efficiency.
Figure 8(c) presents the behaviour of pump efficiency curve at different WC of the
emulsion. A gradual increase in the emulsion viscosity has been observed when WC
increases from 0% to 60%. It is a well known fact that increase in viscosity leads to
increase in hydraulic losses. Equation (2) argues that an increase in hydraulic losses drops
the efficiency of the pump. Once the point of inversion has reached, the water becomes a
continuous phase and resulting viscosity decreases suddenly. Further increase in WC
decreases the viscosity of the emulsion and eventually an increase in the efficiency has
been observed [Figure 8(c)].
Figure 8 also explains that, as the viscosity of crude oil-water emulsion increases, the
discharge capacity decreases. At WC = 62%, the emulsion has the highest viscosity, and
hence the discharge capacity of the pump is the least for corresponding head, power and
efficiency.
The correction factors given in Table 3 reflect the information that the increase in the
viscosity of fluid needs a correction factor for head, discharge and efficiency of the
pump. Figure 9 represents the comparison between the efficiency and head obtained from
the experiment to those with viscosity correction factor using equations (6) to (8).
First of all Figure 9(a) compares the efficiency verses mass flow rate curves of 30%,
50%, 60% and 70% WC emulsions to the curve obtained by including correction factor.
It shows that the performance curves using viscosity correction factors matches well with
the experimental results for the 60% and 70% WC. This is because, at 60% WC, the
emulsion is fully stable and acts as a single-phase viscous fluid. At 70% WC, the water
fraction dominates and it becomes continuously flowing viscous fluid, unlike an
inhomogeneous dispersed emulsions. Hence, the efficiency for WC = 60% emulsion
system matches a bit with the viscosity corrected efficiency for fluid viscosity of 42.5 cP,
but the results for 30% and 50% WC, i.e., for fluid viscosity at 7.6 cP and 21.1 cP did not
match. This discrepancy is again due to the unevenly distributed water droplets which
make the emulsion course and inhomogeneous.
Figure 9(b) shows comparison of head verses mass flow rate curves 30%, 50%, 60%
and 70% WC emulsions to the curve obtained by including correction factor. At lower
viscosity, the different losses associated with the flow, such as hydraulic losses and flow
through losses are less prominent. It is also noted that the curve plotted by using
correction factors using Table 3, deviates less for the value of less viscous fluid, i.e., for
4.5 cP viscosity at 70% WC. This shows that the correction factor given by ANSI/HI
9.6.7 (2004) predicting well for low viscosity emulsions, but for high viscosity emulsions
the difference is quite high.
The hydraulic losses in the pump increase with the increase in viscosity of the fluid
because of the increase in skin friction, disc friction and diffusion (Tuzson, 2000). From
equation (2), it is obvious that the degradation of the head is due to the hydraulic losses
for the higher viscosity fluid. But, when the increase in the viscosity is due to
emulsification of two liquid phases, then, a completely dispersed and stable emulsions
84 S.A. Bellary et al.

shows high power loss and efficiency loss, whereas the unstable emulsions shows less
power and efficiency loss as shown in Figures 8 and 9. The other factor that increases the
power consumption is the increase in the mixture density with increase in WC. The
density of the emulsion increases and consequently power consumption increases.
Additional power was consumed for viscous fluids to overcome disc friction and
hydraulic losses.

Figure 9 Head, EFF and power for different WC with correction factor, (a) comparison of
efficiency obtained in this study with the efficiency obtained viscosity correction factor
(b) comparison of head obtained in this study with the head obtained by including
viscosity correction factor
60% WC = 42.5 cP( η-Exp) 50% WC = 21.1 cP ( η-Exp)
70% WC = 4.5 cP ( η-Exp) 30% WC = 7.6 cP ( η-Exp)
42.5 cp (η- Vis. Cor.) 21.1 cp (η- Vis. Cor.)
7.6 cp (η- Vis. Cor.) 4.5 cp (η- Vis. Cor.)
60

50

40

η 30

20

10

0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
ṁ

(a)
60% WC = 42.5 cP( η-Exp)
30% WC = 7.6 cP ( η-Exp)
42.5 cP (h- Vis. Cor.)
7.6 cP (h- Vis. Cor.)
7
50% WC = 21.1 cP ( η-Exp)
70% WC = 4.5 cP ( η-Exp)
21.1 cP (h- Vis. Cor.)
4.5 cP (h- Vis. Cor.)

4
H
3

0
0.0 0.5 1.0 ṁ 1.5 2.0 2.5

(b)

4 Conclusions

In this article, study on oil-water emulsion and centrifugal pump performance to deliver
such emulsion has been reported through experimental analysis. The experimental facility
was specially developed for this research work and parameters were measured. From the
study, the following conclusions are made:
 Effects of crude oil-water emulsions at various water-cut 85

Water-in-oil emulsion has both characteristics of stable and unstable emulsion,

whereas; oil-in-water emulsion has shown the unstable nature. Apparent viscosity of
emulsion increases with water percentage up to the phase inversion point, which is at
62% WC.
• WC of 60% gives a drop in head by 47.2% as compared to that of zero
WC.
• Increasing WC from 0% to 60% results in a decrease in pump efficiency by 67.4%.
Compared to water-in-oil emulsion, oil-in-water emulsion has shown less
performance drop, i.e., 9.4% in head generation and by 4.5% in pump efficiency.
• In order to reduce the total pumping cost, the quality of the crude oil should be
checked and a WC ranges from 40%–70% should be avoided.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Indian Institute of Technology Madras for the
NFSC grant (Grant code: OEC/10-11/529/NFSC/ABDU) to conduct this research. In
addition, Authors acknowledge the support of asset manager of Oil and Natural Gas
Corporation (ONGC), Karaikal India for conducting this research.

Nomenclature
Abbreviations
ESP Electrical submersible pump
VFD Variable frequency drive
SARA Saturated resins and aromatics
Symbols descriptions
A Asphaltene
b Blade width, mm
C Viscosity correction factor
D Diameter, m
E Voltage, volts
g Acceleration due to gravity, m/s2
H Head generated, m
∆H Hydraulic losses
I Current consumed, A
K Viscosity ratio of dispersed phase to continuous phase
M Power consumed by pump, W
m Mass flow rate, kg/s
N Impeller speed, rpm
P Pressure, N/m2
86 S.A. Bellary et al.

Nomenclature (continued)
Symbols descriptions
R Resin
T Blade thickness, mm
WC Water cut
Q Volume flow rate, ×10–3 m3/s
β Blade angle
η Hydraulic efficiency, %
µ Dynamic viscosity, cP
ρ Density of fluid, kg/m3
φ Water volume fraction of the w/o emulsion, %
Subscript
1 Inlet
2 Outlet
3 Base circle
a Apparent
ac Actual
c Continuous
del Delivery
des Design point
hub Hub
in Input
out Output
pump Pump
r Relative
s Shaft
shr Shroud
sp Specific
suc Suction
w Water
th Theoretical
 Effects of crude oil-water emulsions at various water-cut 87

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