Development of a Transient Mechanistic Two-Phase Flow Model for Wellbores

Abstract

Summary A great deal of research has been focused on transient two-phase flow in wellbores. However, there is lack of a comprehensive two-fluid model in the literature. In this paper, we present an implementation of a pseudo-compositional, thermal, fully implicit, transient two-fluid model for two-phase flow in wellbores. In this model, we solve gas/liquid mass balance, gas/liquid momentum balance, and two-phase energy balance equations to obtain five primary variables: liquid velocity, gas velocity, pressure, holdup, and temperature. This simulator can be used as a stand-alone code or can be used in conjunction with a reservoir simulator to mimic wellbore/reservoir dynamic interactions. In our model, we consider stratified, bubbly, intermittent, and annular flow regimes using appropriate closure relations for interphase and wall-shear stress terms in the momentum equations. In our simulation, we found that the interphase and wall-shear stress terms for different flow regimes can significantly affect the model's results. In addition, the interphase momentum transfer terms mainly influence the holdup value. The outcome of this research leads to a more accurate simulation of multiphase flow in the wellbore and pipes, which can be applied to the surface facility design, well-performance optimization, and wellbore damage estimation.