Use of a Bubble Tracking Method for Prediction of Downhole Natural Separation Efficiency

Abstract

For any pumping artificial lift system in the petroleum industry, the free gas significantly affects the performance of the pump and the system above the pump. A model, though not a complete two-phase flow model, has been developed for the effective prediction of separation efficiency across a wide range of production conditions. The model presented is divided into two main parts, the single-phase flow-field solution and the bubble-tracking method. The first part of the model solves the single-phase liquid flow field using the computational fluid dynamics approach. Then, a simple bubble-tracking method was applied to estimate the down-hole natural separation efficiency for two-phase flow. A comparison between the results of the model and the experimental data was conducted. It shows a very good agreement with the experimental data for lower gas void fractions (bubble flow regime).