Experimental Study on Energy Saving and Friction Reduction of Al2O3-WBM Nanofluids in a High-Speed Taylor-Couette Flow System

Abstract In this work, a high-speed Taylor-Couette system (TCS) was developed for studying drilling fluids at rotational speeds from 0 to 1600 RPM. Water-based mud (WBM) drilling fluid is investigated here by adding Al2O3 nanoparticles at four low volume concentrations percentage of 0.05, 0.1, 0.5 and 1. Five rheology models including Newtonian, Power law, Bingham, Herschel-Bulkley (HB) and Herschel-Bulkley-Extended (HBE) were optimized to fit with the measured data. For Al2O3 nanofluids especially at lower volume concentrations, considerable power saving is observed. Results indicate that Bingham and HBE models fit precisely Al2O3 nanofluids data. Darcy friction factor is deviated from laminar flow at the generalized Reynolds number larger than 2000 for the preferred models. Negative deviation from laminar friction factor was observed.