The effect of physical properties on the gelation behavior of waxy crude oil during shutdown

In this paper, the effect of different viscosity and specific heat capacity on the gelation behavior of waxy crude oil was studied. The additional specific heat capacity method and the momentum source term method are used for numerical simulation. Grey correlation analysis method was used to quantitatively express the correlation degree of viscosity and specific heat capacity on average flow velocity, temperature drop rate and the ratio of gelled oil area to total area. The results show that the influence of viscosity on the gelation behavior of waxy crude oil is greater than that of specific heat capacity. When the viscosity of crude oil is large, natural convection is weaker and the temperature drop rate is smaller, which retards the development of the gelation behavior of crude oil. For crude oil with larger heat capacity, the temperature drop rate is smaller and the natural convection is slightly stronger, but the temperature drop rate has a great influence on the gelation behavior of crude oil, making it develop slowly. The influence of both viscosity and specific heat capacity on gelation behavior is limited.