Pressure pulsation investigation in an electrical submersible pump based on Morlet continuous wavelet transform

Abstract

Electrical Submersible Pumps (ESP) are one of the most reliable and efficient ways to lift oil or water from the ground or deep-sea to the surface. How to reduce the pressure pulsation and increase reliability is a challenging issue in the ESP design processes. In this study, a typical three-stage ESP model was selected as the research object. Based on numerical calculations and validation tests, the flow-field distribution mechanism within the dynamic and static interference zones of multi-stage ESP was investigated. Meanwhile, the inter-stage variability of pressure pulsation characteristics within the main hydraulic components was explored by Morlet continuous wavelet transform. The results showed that the numerical predicted performance has an excellent agreement with the experimental results, which confirms the accuracy of the numerical calculations. The time-domain characteristics of pressure pulsation at each monitoring location within the ESP showed high disorder due to the inter-stage propagation and coupling of the pressure pulsations. The low-frequency signal in the pressure pulsation signal had not only a cascading superposition of intensity, but also a significant phase difference. It was found that the main form of propagation between pulsating signal levels is the low-frequency signal. This work may facilitate the reduction or control of the pressure pulsations and thus improve the operation stability of ESP.