Experimental studies on the rheological characteristics of heavy crude oil and its effect on waterflooding development

This paper presents an experimental study on the rheological characteristics of heavy crude. The results show that the viscosity of crude oil is very sensitive to temperature, and there exists a critical temperature point affecting the rheological characteristics of viscous crude oil. With temperature rising, the viscosity of crude oil will drop. When temperature is above the critical point, the crude oil behaves as a Newtonian fluid. Contrarily, it shows the rheological characteristic of non-Newtonian fluid. In addition, experiments on water flooding viscous oil were also carried out to investigate the fluid flow through heavy crude oil reservoirs.