Abstract
In the oil industry the multiphase flow occur throughout the production chain, from reservoir rock until separation units through the production column, risers and pipelines. During the whole process the fluid flows through the horizontal pipes, curves, connections and T joints. Today, technological and economic challenges facing the oil industry is related to heavy oil transportation due to its unfavourable characteristics such as high viscosity and high density that provokes high pressure drop along the flow. The coreflow technique consists in the injection of small amounts of water into the pipe to form a ring of water between the oil and the wall of the pipe which provides the reduction of friction pressure drop along the flow. This paper aim to model and simulate the transient two-phase flow (water-heavy oil) in a horizontal pipe and T joint by numerical simulation using the software ANSYS CFX® Release 12.0. Results of pressure and volumetric fraction distribution inside the horizontal pipe and T joi...
Highlights
According to late 2004 data, Brazil has a proven liquid oil reserve of 11 billion barrels, being 2.9 billion the amount relative to heavy oil, mostly located in offshore oil fields
To generate projects, which ensure a significant volumetric recovery from reservoirs and improve existing projects, is of fundamental importance the development of new production technologies focused on heavy oil, especially in the scenario of offshore oil fields
PHYSICAL PROBLEM DESCRIPTION The physical problem evaluated in this work consists in a two-phase flow in a horizontal pipe and T Joints both with 6 meters hydraulic length and 0.15 meters diameter
Summary
According to late 2004 data, Brazil has a proven liquid oil reserve of 11 billion barrels, being 2.9 billion the amount relative to heavy oil, mostly located in offshore oil fields. Brauner [24] proposed an analytical model to predict the holdup and pressure drop in situ for a horizontal pipe and obtained the power saving factor as a function to the viscosity ratio They observed that in the case of laminar flow of two fluids, the energy saving factor is independent of the properties of fluids, and for turbulent flow, this factor increases with the decrease of density difference between the phases. The authors measured the pressure drop and the holdup with different rates of inflow and was suggested an empirical correlation for the holdup in terms of a water volumetric fraction They showed a curve of the friction factor as a function by the Reynolds number to perform a theoretical study of perfect annular flow. When the term of mass source SMSα and the term of mass diffusivity Γαβ are neglected, we can write the Equation 1 as:
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