Experimental study on energy saving and friction reduction of Al₂O₃-WBM nanofluids in a high-speed Taylor-Couette flow system

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.