Modeling Gas-Liquid Head Performance of Electrical Submersible Pumps

Abstract

This study presents a new gas-liquid model to predict electrical submersible pumps head performance. The newly derived approach based on gas-liquid momentum equations along pump channels has improved the Sachdeva model (Sachdeva, R., Doty, D. R., and Schmidt, Z., 1988, “Two-Phase Flow through Electrical Submersible Pumps,” Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Tulsa, Oklahoma; 1994, “Performance of Electric Submersible Pumps in Gassy Wells,” SPE Prod. Facil., 9, pp. 55–60) in the petroleum industry and generalized the Minemura model (Minemura, K., Uchiyama, T., Shoda, S. and Kazuyuki, E., 1998, “Prediction of Air-Water Two-Phase Flow Performance of a Centrifugal Pump Based on One-Dimensional Two-Fluid Model,” ASME J. Fluids. Eng., 120, pp. 327–334) in the nuclear industry. The new two-phase model includes novel approaches for wall frictional losses for each phase using a gas-liquid stratified assumption and existing correlations, a new shock loss model incorporating rotational speeds, a new correlation for drag coefficient and interfacial characteristic length effects by fitting the model results with experimental data, and an algorithm to solve the model equations. The model can predict pressure and void fraction distributions along impellers and diffusers in addition to the pump head performance curve under different fluid properties, pump intake conditions, and rotational speeds.

Estimate of the Head Produced by Electrical Submersible Pumps on Gaseous Petroleum Fluids, A Radial Basis Function Network Approach

“…For example, at S=1, with use of the modelling data in (8), the resultant error is 0.0645 ft; whereas, the test error is 44.8621 ft, an evident example of overfitting to the modelling data.…”

“…Available analytical models, derived on the basis of mass and momentum balances [7,8], use unrealistic assumptions and oversimplified physics of two-phase fluids. This has harmed their reliability.…”

A Review of Experiments and Modeling of Gas-Liquid Flow in Electrical Submersible Pumps

“…Sun and Prado [12,14,22] claimed that the diffuser loss is caused mainly by the friction on the diffuser walls. Table 5 presents the calculation formulae of diffuser losses that were implemented in the prediction models.…”

“…Based on Sachdeva et al and Minemura et al one-dimensional two-fluid models, Sun [12,22] developed a new two-phase model including a set of one-dimensional mass and momentum balance equations for predicting ESP performance. He also improved analytical models for wall frictional losses and shock loss, as well as new correlations for the drag coefficient.…”

“…Based on Sachdeva [82] and Sun [12] momentum equations in Equation (24) along the streamline inside a rotating centrifugal pump, Zhu [1] derived the combined momentum equation of gas and liquid phases by assuming the Taylor bubble flow pattern prevailing in rotating ESP two-phase flow:…”