Drainage effect of internal vortex tool based on experiment and numerical simulation

Abstract

ABSTRACT The liquid loading at the bottom of horizontal gas well is a problem that has a significant influence on the productivity of gas well. Therefore, it is necessary to take some measures of drainage gas recovery to reduce liquid loading in wellbore and increase gas production. To evaluate the drainage effect of the internal vortex tool, which is a new drainage gas recovery tool, firstly, under the conditions of different water-gas ratios, a horizontal well laboratory simulation experiment device was used to simulate the flow state and liquid loading of the gas-liquid two-phase fluid in the wellbore before and after loading the internal vortex tool. The experimental results indicate that the internal vortex tool can effectively decrease wellbore liquid loading, improve wellbore fluid flow pattern and reduce production pressure drop. Secondly, the numerical simulation method is used to study the flow of gas-liquid two-phase and pressure drop amplitude under different gas and liquid flow conditions. Finally, the results of laboratory experiment were compared with numerical simulation, and it was found that the pressure drop amplitude error was between 6.18%~9.32%, both within 10%, which met the error requirements. It was proved that the application of internal vortex tool could effectively increase the productivity of gas wells.