Na, W, Jia, J, Yu, X et al. (5 more authors) (2015) Imaging of gas-liquid annular flows for underbalanced drilling using electrical resistance tomography. Flow Measurement and Instrumentation, 46 (B). pp. 319-326. ISSN 0955-5986
Abstract
The underbalanced drilling technique, which is also known as managed-pressure drilling, is playing an important role in oil and gas sector, as it reduces common conventional drilling problems such as minimal drilling rates and formation damage, differential sticking and lost circulation. Flow regime monitoring is one of the key topics in annular multiphase flow research, particularly for underbalanced drilling technique. Prediction of the prevailing flow regime in an annulus is of particular importance in the design and installation of underbalanced drilling facilities. Especially, for establishing a suitable pressure-drop model based on the characteristics of the active flow regime. The methods of flow regime prediction (or visualisation) in an annulus that are currently in use are very limited, this is evidently due to poor accuracy or they are simply not applicable to underbalanced drilling operation in practice. Therefore, this paper presents a monitoring method, in which Electrical Resistance Tomography (ERT) is used to rapidly image the prevailing flow regime in an annulus with a metallic inner pipe. Experiments were carried out using an air–water flow loop with a test section 50 mm diameter flow pipe. The two-phase air–water flow regimes are visualised in the upward vertical annulus with a radius ratio (r/R) 0.4. This paper highlights the visualisation results of only three flow regimes, namely bubble flow, transitional bubble-slug flow and slug flow. The flow regimes are visualised through axial images stacked from 50 mm diameter-pixels of 2D tomograms reconstructed with the Conjugate Gradient Method (SCG). Gas volume fraction profiles within the annular flow channel are also illustrated. The profiles are extracted using the Modified Sensitivity coefficient Back-Projection (MSBP) method with a sensitivity matrix generated from a realstic phantom in the finite element method software. The results are compared with visual observations (e.g. photographs) of the active flow regime at the time of ERT measurements.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) 2015, The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Underbalanced drilling technique; Annular flow; Flow regime; Electrical resistance tomography; Flow regime visualisation |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Chemical & Process Engineering (Leeds) > Institute for Particle Science and Engineering (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 02 Mar 2016 11:35 |
Last Modified: | 11 Apr 2018 15:38 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.flowmeasinst.2015.07.0... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.flowmeasinst.2015.07.003 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:95498 |