A separate phase drag model and a surrogate approximation for simulation of the steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process

Padrino-Inciarte, Juan Carlos; Ma, Xia; VanderHeyden, W. Brian; Zhang, Duan Zhong

doi:10.2118/178432-PA

Title: A separate phase drag model and a surrogate approximation for simulation of the steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process

Full Record
Other Related Research

Abstract

General ensemble phase averaged equations for multiphase flows have been specialized for the simulation of the steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process. In the average momentum equation, fluid-solid and fluid-fluid viscous interactions are represented by separate force terms. This equation has a form similar to that of Darcy’s law for multiphase flow but augmented by the fluid-fluid viscous forces. Models for these fluid-fluid interactions are suggested and implemented into the numerical code CartaBlanca. Numerical results indicate that the model captures the main features of the multiphase flow in the SAGD process, but the detailed features, such as plumes are missed. We find that viscous coupling among the fluid phases is important. Advection time scales for the different fluids differ by several orders of magnitude because of vast viscosity differences. Numerically resolving all of these time scales is time consuming. To address this problem, we introduce a steam surrogate approximation to increase the steam advection time scale, while keeping the mass and energy fluxes well approximated. This approximation leads to about a 40-fold speed-up in execution speed of the numerical calculations at the cost of a few percent error in the relevant quantities.

Authors:

Padrino-Inciarte, Juan Carlos ^[1]; Ma, Xia ^[1]; VanderHeyden, W. Brian ^[2]; Zhang, Duan Zhong ^[1]

Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States). Fluid Dynamics and Solid Mechanics Group
BP America, Houston, TX (United States). Heavy Oil Flagship

Publication Date:: Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2016

Research Org.:: Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:: USDOE

OSTI Identifier:: 1221768

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-14-28283
Journal ID: ISSN 1086-055X

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-06NA25396

Resource Type:: Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:: SPE Journal

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Volume: 40; Journal Issue: 35; Journal ID: ISSN 1086-055X

Publisher:: Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING; 02 PETROLEUM; multiphase flows, porous media, Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage

Citation Formats


                    Padrino-Inciarte, Juan Carlos, Ma, Xia, VanderHeyden, W. Brian, and Zhang, Duan Zhong. A separate phase drag model and a surrogate approximation for simulation of the steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process.  United States: N. p., 2016. 
Web.  doi:10.2118/178432-PA.

Copy to clipboard


                    Padrino-Inciarte, Juan Carlos, Ma, Xia, VanderHeyden, W. Brian, & Zhang, Duan Zhong. A separate phase drag model and a surrogate approximation for simulation of the steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process.  United States.  https://doi.org/10.2118/178432-PA

Copy to clipboard


                    Padrino-Inciarte, Juan Carlos, Ma, Xia, VanderHeyden, W. Brian, and Zhang, Duan Zhong. Fri .  
"A separate phase drag model and a surrogate approximation for simulation of the steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process".  United States.  https://doi.org/10.2118/178432-PA.  https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1221768.

Copy to clipboard


                    
@article{osti_1221768,

  title        = {A separate phase drag model and a surrogate approximation for simulation of the steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process},

  author       = {Padrino-Inciarte, Juan Carlos and Ma, Xia and VanderHeyden, W. Brian and Zhang, Duan Zhong},

  abstractNote = {General ensemble phase averaged equations for multiphase flows have been specialized for the simulation of the steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process. In the average momentum equation, fluid-solid and fluid-fluid viscous interactions are represented by separate force terms. This equation has a form similar to that of Darcy’s law for multiphase flow but augmented by the fluid-fluid viscous forces. Models for these fluid-fluid interactions are suggested and implemented into the numerical code CartaBlanca. Numerical results indicate that the model captures the main features of the multiphase flow in the SAGD process, but the detailed features, such as plumes are missed. We find that viscous coupling among the fluid phases is important. Advection time scales for the different fluids differ by several orders of magnitude because of vast viscosity differences. Numerically resolving all of these time scales is time consuming. To address this problem, we introduce a steam surrogate approximation to increase the steam advection time scale, while keeping the mass and energy fluxes well approximated. This approximation leads to about a 40-fold speed-up in execution speed of the numerical calculations at the cost of a few percent error in the relevant quantities.},

  doi          = {10.2118/178432-PA},

  journal      = {SPE Journal},

  number       = 35,

  volume       = 40,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2016},

  month        = {Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2016}

}

Copy to clipboard

Journal Article:

Free Publicly Available Full Text

Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Publisher's Version of Record

https://doi.org/10.2118/178432-PA

Other availability

Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 1 work

Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Save / Share:

Export Metadata

Save to My Library

Similar Records in DOE PAGES and OSTI.GOV collections:

A NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SINGLE-WELL STEAM ASSISTED GRAVITY DRAINAGE (SW-SAGD) PROCESS

Technical Report Elliot, K T ; Kovscek, A R

Steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is an effective method to produce heavy oil and bitumen which are important energy resources. In a typical SAGD approach, steam is injected into a horizontal well located directly above a horizontal producer helping to displace heated oil. Single-well (SW) SAGD attempts to create a similar process using only one horizontal well. To improve early-time response of SW-SAGD, it is necessary to heat the near-wellbore area to reduce oil viscosity and allow gravity drainage to begin. Ideally heating should occur with minimal circulation or bypassing of steam. We have investigated early-time processes to improve reservoirmore »« less
https://doi.org/10.2172/823162

Full Text Available
Computer Simulation of Single-Well Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SW-SAGD), SUPRI TR-119

Technical Report Elliott, Keith T ; Kovscek, Anthony R

Steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is an effective method of producing heavy oil and bitumen. In a typical SAGD approach, steam is injected into a horizontal well located directly above a horizontal producer. A steam chamber grows around the injection well and helps displace heated oil toward the production well. Single-well (SW) SAGD attempts to create a similar process using only one horizontal well. This may include steam injection from the toe of the horizontal well with production at the heel. Obvious advantages of SW-SAGD include cost savings and utility in relatively thin reservoirs. However, the process is technically challenging.more »« less
https://doi.org/10.2172/9333

Full Text Available
A Lagrangian vorticity method for two-phase particulate flows with two-way phase coupling

Journal Article Chen, H ; Marshall, J S - Journal of Computational Physics

Two-phase flows involving solids particles or droplets in gases or bubbles or sediment in liquids have been subject to intensive study for decades due to their wide range of applications in industrial and environmental processes. Here, a Lagrangian vorticity-based method is presented for simulating two-way phase interaction in a two-phase flow with heavy particles. The flow is computed by solving the vorticity transport equation, including the particle-induced vorticity source, and the mass conservation equation for particle concentration on separate sets of fluid control points and particle control points, respectively. The fluid control points are advected with the local fluid velocity,more »« less
https://doi.org/10.1006/jcph.1998.6116
Investigation of enhancement of steam condensation heat transfer on finned tubes with porous drainage strips

Conference Xijuan, Liu ; Tongze, Ma ; Zhengfang, Zhang

Condensation of steam on horizontal finned tube with porous drainage strip was investigated experimentally and theoretically. Composite metal screens were used as porous drainage strip. Distilled water was taken in the experiments as working fluid. The experiments were carried out to find the structure effects of composite screen drainage strip on the condensation heat transfer on finned tubes with fin spacing of 0.5mm. Influences of the mesh number of both outer and inner layers and of length and thickness of the drainage strip were investigated. The outer layers of the screens have the mesh numbers of 100, 150, 185 andmore »« less
Numerical simulation of steam-assisted gravity drainage using paired horizontal wells

Conference Law, D H.S. ; Nasr, T N

This paper describes the numerical simulation of a steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) experiment with paired horizontal wells conducted at the Alberta Research Council (ARC) using a scaled physical model. The objectives of the numerical study were to determine the most adequate way of modelling lab-scale horizontal wells and production enthalpy control (steam trap); to validate the numerical model for the SAGD process; and to evaluate the impact of different pre-heating strategies on the performance of the SAGD process. The numerical study demonstrated that the horizontal wells used in the SAGD experiment can be reasonably simulated using a novel {open_quotes}gridblock representationmore »« less

Similar Records