Investigation of non-Newtonian flow characterization and rheology of heavy crude oil

The heavy crude oil exhibits a non-Newtonian shear thinning behavior over the examined shear rate. The viscosity of the heavy crude oil decreases about 15.6% when the temperature increased from 30 to 60 degrees C. Heavy crude oil was blended with the aqueous solution of surfactant and saline water in different volumetric proportions of NaCl, and Na2CO3 solution mixtures. The addition of 50% of the mixture to the heavy crude oil causes a strong reduction in the viscosity, about 67.5% at 60 degrees C. The heavy crude oil fits the Power law model since it has the lowest average absolute percent error of 0.0291. The flow behavior index of the heavy crude oil reaches a value of 0.9305 at a temperature of 30 degrees C and it increases to 0.9373 when the temperature raises 60 degrees C, while the consistence coefficient decreases from 2.8811 to 2.3558.