Phase and velocity distributions in vertically upward high-viscosity two-phase flow

2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Schmidt ◽  
H. Giesbrecht ◽  
C.W.M. van der Geld
Author(s):  
Lissett Barrios ◽  
Stuart Scott ◽  
Charles Deuel

The paper reports on developmental research on the effects of viscosity and two phases, liquid–gas fluids on ESPs which are multi stage centrifugal pumps for deep bore holes. Multiphase viscous performance in a full-scale Electrical Submersible Pump (ESP) system at Shell’s Gasmer facility has been studied experimentally and theoretically. The main objectives is to predict the operational conditions that cause degradations for high viscosity fluids when operating in high Gas Liquid Radio (GLR) wells to support operation in Shell major Projects. The system studied was a 1025 series tandem WJE 1000. The test was performed using this configuration with ten or more pump stages moving fluids with viscosity from 2 to 200 cP at various speed, intake pressure and Gas Void Fractions (GVF). For safety considerations the injected gas was restricted to nitrogen or air. The ESP system is a central artificial lift method commonly used for medium to high flow rate wells. Multiphase flow and viscous fluids causes problems in pump applications. Viscous fluids and free gas inside an ESP can cause head degradation and gas locking. Substantial attempts have been made to model centrifugal pump performance under gas-liquid viscous applications, however due to the complexity this is still a uncertain problem. The determination of the two-phase flow performance in these harmful conditions in the ESP is fundamental aspects in the surveillance operation. The testing at Shell’s Gasmer facility revealed that the ESP system performed as theoretical over the range of single flowrates and light viscosity oils up to Gas Volume Fractions (GVF) around 25%. The developed correlations predict GVF at the pump intake based on the operational parameters. ESP performance degrades at viscosity higher than 100cp as compared to light oil applications, gas lock condition is observed at gas fraction higher than 45%. Pump flowrate can be obtained from electrical current and boost for all range of GVF and speed. The main technical contributions are the analysis of pump head degradation under two important variables, high viscosity and two-phase flow inside the ESP.


Author(s):  
Albert R. Muller ◽  
Harry S. Forrest ◽  
Harold G. Fisher

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 1000
Author(s):  
Lizeth Torres ◽  
José Noguera ◽  
José Enrique Guzmán-Vázquez ◽  
Jonathan Hernández ◽  
Marco Sanjuan ◽  
...  

We study a high-viscosity two-phase flow through an analysis of the corresponding pressure signals. In particular, we investigate the flow of a glycerin–air mixture moving through a horizontal pipeline with a U-section installed midway along the pipe. Different combinations of liquid and air mass flow rates are experimentally tested. Then, we examine the moments of the statistical distributions obtained from the resulting pressure time series, in order to highlight the significant dynamical traits of the flow. Finally, we propose a novel correlation with two dimensionless parameters: the Euler number and a mass-flow-rate ratio to predict the pressure gradient in high-viscosity two-phase flow. Distinctive variations of the pressure gradients are observed in each section of the pipeline, which suggest that the local flow dynamics must not be disregarded in favor of global considerations.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Wang ◽  
Wei Cheng ◽  
Kai Li ◽  
Chen Lou ◽  
Jing Gong

A systematic work on the prediction of flow patterns transition of the oil-water two-phase flows is carried out under a wide range of oil phase viscosities, where four main flow regimes are considered including stratified, dispersed, core-annular, and intermittent flow. For oil with a relatively low viscosity, VKH criterion is considered for the stability of stratified flow, and critical drop size model is distinguished for the transition of o/w and w/o dispersed flow. For oil with a high viscousity, boundaries of core-annular flow are based on criteria proposed by Bannwart and Strazza et al. and neutral stability law ignoring that the velocity of the viscous phase is introduced for stratified flow. Comparisons between predictions and quantities of available data in both low and high viscosity oil-water flow from literatures show a good agreement. The framework provides extensive information about flow patterns transition of oil-water two-phase flow for industrial application.


SPE Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (03) ◽  
pp. 1155-1173
Author(s):  
Eissa Al-Safran ◽  
Mohammad Ghasemi ◽  
Feras Al-Ruhaimani

Summary High-viscosity liquid two-phase upward vertical flow in wells and risers presents a new challenge for predicting pressure gradient and liquid holdup due to the poor understanding and prediction of flow pattern. The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of liquid viscosity on two-phase flow pattern in vertical pipe flow. Further objective is to develop new/improve existing mechanistic flow-pattern transition models for high-viscosity liquid two-phase-flow vertical pipes. High-viscosity liquid flow pattern two-phase flow data were collected from open literature, against which existing flow-pattern transition models were evaluated to identify discrepancies and potential improvements. The evaluation revealed that existing flow transition models do not capture the effect of liquid viscosity, resulting in poor prediction. Therefore, two bubble flow (BL)/dispersed bubble flow (DB) pattern transitions are proposed in this study for two different ranges of liquid viscosity. The first proposed transition model modifies Brodkey's critical bubble diameter (Brodkey 1967) by including liquid viscosity, which is applicable for liquid viscosity up to 100 mPa·s. The second model, which is applicable for liquid viscosities above 100 mPa·s, proposes a new critical bubble diameter on the basis of Galileo's dimensionless number. Furthermore, the existing bubbly/intermittent flow (INT) transition model on the basis of a critical gas void fraction of 0.25 (Taitel et al. 1980) is modified to account for liquid viscosity. For the INT/annular flow (AN) transition, the Wallis transition model (Wallis 1969) was evaluated and found to be able to predict the high-viscosity liquid flow pattern data more accurately than the existing models. A validation study of the proposed transition models against the entire high-viscosity liquid experimental data set revealed a significant improvement with an average error of 22.6%. Specifically, the model over-performed existing models in BL/INT and INT/AN pattern transitions.


2017 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 109-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yahaya D. Baba ◽  
Archibong E. Archibong ◽  
Aliyu M. Aliyu ◽  
Abdulhaqq I. Ameen

Geofluids ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Eslam Ezzatneshan ◽  
Reza Goharimehr

In this work, the capability of a multiphase lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) based on the pseudopotential Shan-Chen (S-C) model is investigated for simulation of two-phase flows through porous media at high-density and high–viscosity ratios. The accuracy and robustness of the S-C LBM are examined by the implementation of the single relaxation time (SRT) and multiple relaxation time (MRT) collision operators with integrating the forcing schemes of the shifted velocity method (SVM) and the exact difference method (EDM). Herein, two equations of state (EoS), namely, the standard Shan-Chen (SC) EoS and Carnahan-Starling (CS) EoS, are implemented to assay the performance of the numerical technique employed for simulation of two-phase flows at high-density ratios. An appropriate modification in the forcing schemes is also used to remove the thermodynamic inconsistency in the simulation of two-phase flow problems studied at low reduced temperatures. The comparative study of these improvements of the S-C LBM is performed by considering an equilibrium state of a droplet suspended in the vapor phase. The solver is validated against the analytical coexistence curve for the liquid-vapor system and the surface tension estimation from the Laplace Law. Then, according to the results obtained, a conclusion has been made to choose an efficient numerical algorithm, including an appropriate collision operator, a realistic EoS, and an accurate forcing scheme, for simulation of multiphase flow transport through a porous medium. The patterns of two-phase flow transport through the porous medium are predicted using the present numerical scheme in different flow conditions defined by the capillary number and the dynamic viscosity ratio. The results obtained for the nonwetting phase saturation, penetration structure of the invading fluid, and the displacement patterns of two-phase flow in the porous medium are comparable with those reported in the literature. The present study demonstrates that the S-C LBM with employing the MRT-EDM scheme, CS EoS, and the modified forcing scheme is efficient and accurate for estimation of the two-phase flow characteristics through the porous medium.


Geofluids ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Shanzhi Shi ◽  
Jie Li ◽  
Xinke Yang ◽  
Congping Liu ◽  
Ruiquan Liao ◽  
...  

To explore the pressure drop variation with the viscosity of heavy oil gas-liquid two-phase flow, experiments with different viscosity gas-liquid two-phase flows are carried out. The experimental results show that the total pressure drop increases with increasing liquid viscosity when the superficial gas and liquid flow rates are the same. The liquid superficial velocity is 0.52 m/s, and the superficial gas velocity is 12 m/s in the vertical and inclined pipes, as there is a negative friction pressure drop when the superficial gas and liquid velocities are small. Additionally, the increased range of the total pressure drop decreases with increasing liquid viscosity. Considering the heavy oil gas-liquid two-phase flow, a prediction model of the pressure drop in high-viscosity liquid-gas two-phase flow is established. The new model is verified by experimental data and compared with existing models. The new model has the smallest error, basically within 15%. Based on the prediction of the wellbore pressure distribution of four wells in the BeiA oilfield, the new model prediction results are closer to the measured results, and the error is the smallest. The new model can be used to predict pressure drops in high-viscosity gas-liquid two-phase flow.


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