Development of Dimensionless Parameters and Groups of Heat and Mass Transfer to Predict Wax Deposition in Crude Oil Pipelines

A new methodology has been developed for analyzing heat and mass transfer to predict wax deposition in crude oil pipelines using the law of the wall dimensionless parameters. A set of physically meaningful dimensionless groups and parameters has laid a strong foundation behind the proposed methodology. The paper presents a discussion regarding the development of scale-up correlations from laboratory scale to field scale, considering the combination of both analytical groups and empirical correlations. Data from previous literature studies were employed for determining realistic values for the developed parameters and scale-up correlations. The utilization of new dimensionless scale-up parameters indicated that the wax deposition in crude oil pipelines is independent of the Reynolds number and the inner diameter of the pipeline. It further indicates that wax deposition in crude oil pipelines is mainly dependent on the heat transfer process and not on the shear reduction process. The dimensionless technique developed here can be utilized for determining the optimum pipe size and pigging frequencies to reduce and mitigate the effect of the wax deposition process.