The Development And Water-air Two-phase
Test Results Of An Electrical Submersible
Pump Visualization Prototype
Author(s)
F. E. Trevisan & M. G. Prado
Abstract
Artificial lift systems are extensively used in the petroleum industry in order to
enhance or even initiate the production of oil wells that present insufficient
energy to produce naturally. The Electrical Submersible Pump (ESP) is one of
the many existing artificial lift techniques and consists of assembling several
diffuser type centrifugal pumps in series.
It is common in petroleum field applications to have an inflow of natural gas
into the pump intake, which compromises pump performance and reliability.
Trying to better understand the interaction between the gas and liquid inside
centrifugal pumps is still a challenge and the current investigation tries to help
understand this subject.
This research describes the development of a visualization prototype built
using original ESP components, applying minimal mechanical and geometrical
modifications, with the intent of acquiring visual evidence of the flow patterns
that occur inside the pump. Because of these minimal changes to the original
pump geometry, the prototype was proven to operate according to the original
pump catalogue performance, implying that its hydraulic behaviour was
maintained.
Water-air two phase experiments were conducted at different rotational
speeds (15, 20, 30 Hz) and non-slip void fractions (up to 5%) while the liquid
rate was kept constant at 60% of the maximum rate at the defined shaft speed.
High speed video footage was gathered, as well as differential pressure
measurements.
The authors identified four water-air flow patterns inside the impeller
channels: Dispersed Bubbles, Agglomerated Bubbles, Gas Pocket and
Segregated Gas. By comparing the images with the differential pressure data, it
Keywords
centrifugal pump, flow visualization, two-phase flow, surging, flow patterns
Related Book
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