History of Drag Reduction
The possibility to manipulate pipe friction was first discovered in the late forties.
By mixing some soap to gasoline the throughput of the pipeline could be increased considerably. The invention was made in a military depot and the evolution of the DRA's was not very visible until the Alaska pipeline made the issue commercial. The Alaska pipeline was the first big commercial application for this technology. Today DRA's are not based on soaps. They are highly specialized polymers that give performance that the early pioneers could not even dream about.
The two last decades have been a triumph for DRA's. They are now widely used to solve flow problems wherever the flow in a pipe must be precisely controlled and optimized. This technology is proven to be reliable in the arctic and in the desert, on the mainland and offshore. Furthermore they are one of the best ways to make the existing pipeline systems fulfill today's demands both in economically and environmentally sound way.