Abstract: It is of great significance that well bore temperature and viscosity of crude oil are predicted accurately for the selection of oil production technology in the process of exploiting heavy oil. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) numerical simulation method is used and the numerical simulation model of heating and viscosity reduction of circulating hot water in hollow rod top pump is established. The curves of oil temperature and viscosity along the tube are obtained by using numerical solution for the flow field with different circulating water inlet temperature. The viscosity reduction rate along tube is calculated and drag reduction effect is analyzed by using objective function. The results show that the temperature of crude oil reaches peak value at 30～35 m away from the inlet, then the temperature decrease; when the inlet temperature of circulating water are 80 ℃, 70 ℃ and 60 ℃, the viscosity reduction rate of the tube reach 97.3%, 96.7% and 94.6% respectively.

Key words: Computational fluid dynamics simulation, Heavy oil, Viscosity reduction