Hydraulics conveyances of mud slurry by a spiral pipe

Indonesia particularly East Java has been suffering from eruption of gas and mud slurry, caused by oil and gas exploration. Everyone calls this disaster as Sidoarjo mud or Lapindo mud. Mud slurry is essentially a mixture of a carrying fluid and solid particles held in suspension. When the mud slurry flow speed is not sufficiently high the particles will not be maintained in suspension. In spiral pipe twisted with a constant pitch in relation to the axis a swirling flow occurs when fluids flow in the pipe. The aim of this study is to examine characteristics of the hydraulic transport of mud slurry flowing in the spiral pipe with three-shape groove pipe walls. The shear stress and the shear strain are calculated by measuring the pressure drop and the volumetric flow rate in circular pipe, respectively. The power law exponent were about 0.93-1.0 for mud slurry solution of 45%, 30% and 20% of weight concentrations. The diameter of particles was 0.95 mm and the density was 2.19 × 10³ (kg/m³). The apparent viscosity of mud slurry solution is not constant to the shear strain but the relationship is approximated by model of power law. The friction factor of mud slurries in a spiral pipe with ratio pitch per diameter 6.7 is lower than circular pipe and spiral pipe with P/Di= 3.9 and 4.3. It was shown that the spiral pipe caused drag reduction in flowing of mud slurries. The drag reduction ratio of spiral pipe was about 28% for Cw=30% at Re'=32 × 10³.