Correcting rated pump performance to working conditions in the field will increase efficiency, particularly when the pipeline is transporting heavy oil. This article presents a model for correcting pump performance guidelines for heavy oil pipelines. Corrected head (efficiency) points are closer to the Dong-lin pipeline's actual in-service points than the uncorrected points, illustrating the model's feasibility and providing a simple, relatively high accuracy tool for application to heavy oil pipeline engineering in general. Standard centrifugal pump characteristics apply to media having a kinematic viscosity close to water at 20° C. (-1 cSt), the conditions under which they're typically tested. For heavy oil pipelines, however, the viscosity of the oil exceeds 20 sq mm/sec. Head (H) and flow rates (Q) decrease slightly, and efficiency (t|) drops sharply when kinematic viscosity exceeds 20 sq mm/sec (Fig. I).1 Pump performance should be corrected accordingly.
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