What's inside?
This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE North American Artificial Lift Conference and Exhibition held in The Woodlands, Texas, USA, 25-27 October 2016.
Advanced computer simulations for pump stage design enable an efficient way to design and evaluate pump performance. Simulations also provide detailed structural behavior (e.g., stress, modal analysis), temperature analysis and performance at various flow regimens (multiphase flow). Finite element analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can be coupled with multi-disciplinary design optimization (MDO) in pump stage design practice, becoming a more helpful tool than traditional trial-and-error approaches.
The prototype has demonstrated capabilities to pump above 75% GVF without gas locking.
In this publication, you will:
- Discover how these tools are used to accelerate the design process of new pump stages for electric submersible pumps (ESP).
- Understand how a simulation-based design was used to develop a hybrid gas-handling stage.
- See how a hybrid stage manages a higher gas volume fraction (GVF) through production tubing as well as achieves a rising head across the operating range.
