(91e) A CFD SIMULATOR for Multiphase FLOW IN RESERVOIRS and Pipes

We are developing a  computational fluid mechanics ( CFD ) computer code for flow of oil, gas and sand in reservoirs and pipes that will help to understand flow in wild wells that are drilled for offshore oil production .We have simulated the flow of mud, gas and oil, as described in the Sunday, December 26,2010 New York Times article, “ Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours”. With a low level of mud in the pipe and some trapped gas in the well, the mud gets blown out, followed by gas and then oil. The diving force for flow is the buoyancy between the oil, gas and mud in the pipe and an equivalent height of water.

We have used a modification of our CFD code described in the 2009 book, “ COMPUTATIONAL TECHIQUES “ by Dimitri Gidaspow and Veeraya Jiradilok, Nova Science Publishers

Conventional state of the art multiphase flow simulations in the reservoirs are done using Darcy’s law. Our simulations using CFD show that near the well the flow is highly turbulent. Our measure of turbulence is the computed granular temperature of the sand near the well. It may be possible to measure the signals caused by these vibrations which are not predicted by the conventional models using Darcy’s law.

In the tall well we are computing a core-annular flow in dilute oil-gas flow, in agreement with literature. We are also computing the friction coefficients of gas and oil flow in the well at the high gas and oil flow rates. In the one dimensional models, such as those used for licensing nuclear reactors, the fully developed friction coefficients are an input into the codes.