Prediction and research on the erosion of the tubing joint in high yield gas well

Abstract

Sand production in high-yield gas-well is a common problem in oilfield. Erosion caused by sand production, often leads to pipeline failures and even endangers lives and property if serious. So, the sand production problem cannot be ignored. In this paper, computational fluid dynamics are used. I conduct numerical simulation in allusion to the process of gas flowing through pipeline with sand, with FLUENT software, and then discuss the influence on erosion caused by the flow velocity of gas, the flow rate of sand, the diameter of particles and so on. The following conclusions are drawn: with the increase of natural gas flow rate, the average erosion rate at the tubing joint increases gradually and is approximately exponential to the natural gas flow rate; with the increase of sand flow rate, the average erosion rate at the tubing joint increases gradually and is approximately linear to the sand flow rate; with the increase of sand particle size, the erosion rate at the tubing joint decreases gradually.