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Abel Camacho-Galvan1
Abstract Transient hydraulics always characterizes the Keywords Pressure drilling Oil-well hydraulics
circulating flow during managed pressure drilling. There- Godunov scheme Transient pressure Transient flow
fore, the application of the Godunov scheme to oil-well
drilling hydraulics is presented. The numerical model de-
veloped describes the treatment process of the initial and Introduction
boundary conditions from the well geometry and true op-
erational conditions. The well-known finite-volume Transient phenomena are always presented during oil-well
method and Riemann problem are utilized for building the drilling, as an implicit result of changing the flow rate,
set of discrete equations. The account of Godunovs pumping, and choke pressures while the fluid mud is
simulation describes the profiles of transient pressure and circulating through the well. To describe the transient hy-
transient flow rate along the well. For attending the oil-field draulics, the mathematical model composed by mass and
engineering concerns, the drilling parameters discussed are momentum equations is applied,
as follows: choke pressure, pumping pressure, bottom-hole oU oF
pressure, and circulating flow rate. After the comparison S 1
ot ox
between computed and well data, the results show a small 2 3
Qm
difference of less than 7 and 1 % for pumping and bottom- l
U ; F4 Q2 5;
hole pressures, respectively. The main engineering contri- Qm Ap m
bution of this work is the solution and application of the l
0
first-order Godunov scheme to analyze the transient hy- S ;
fD juju qgA
draulics during actual oil-well drilling and also the analysis
and interpretation of the pressure wave behavior traveling where l = qA, Qm = lu = qAu, and fD = (f/2)q/(2qA)2
along the well. The Godunov scheme has high-potential indicates the friction parameter, the variables p, u, q, g, and
engineering applications for modeling the transient drilling A denote pressure, velocity, density, gravity constant, and
hydraulics, i.e., controlled flow, underbalanced drilling, cross-sectional area, respectively. Notice that to handle
and foam cementing, as well. different wall roughness and flow rates, Moody friction
factor f can be directly added to Godunov scheme and
computed in one step applying explicit correlations of
& Oscar C. Valdiviezo-Mijangos f (Bilgesu and Koperna 1995). This is suggested because
ovaldivi@imp.mx the average error between explicit approximations and the
1
implicit Colebrook relation is up to 3 % (Brkic 2011).
Facultad de Ingeniera, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de
Explicit relations have to be a function of Reynolds number
Mexico, Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacan, 04510 Mexico, DF,
Mexico and relative roughness. Without altering research goals, an
2 average friction factor of 0.015 is used because the flow is
Instituto Mexicano del Petroleo, Eje Central Lazaro Cardenas
152, Delegacion Gustavo A. Madero, 07730 Mexico, DF, turbulent and relative roughness is always less than 0.0004
Mexico in all wellbore sections.
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J Petrol Explor Prod Technol
To close the above system, the relationship between interfaces or discontinuities explicitly. As a result of this
mass and pressure based on the definition of mixture sound advantage, Godunov scheme is applicable to problems in-
celerity equation cm is used as volving smooth solutions, discontinuous solutions, and
c complex wave interaction. On the other hand, conventional
cm 1=2 ; 2
1=h 1h=h numerical schemes need continuous solutions (i.e., finite
1 qgRef pRef =p difference method) and most of them were not designed to
capture contact discontinuities, for instance, compressive
where c is the celerity of the liquid pressure wave, gRef is
or rarefaction shock. In previous works, the Godunov
the gas fraction, and h is equal to 1 and 1.4 for isothermal
scheme has been recently applied to analyze transient two-
and adiabatic conditions, respectively. The limiting case is
phase flow in rectangular and circular pipes for different
for pure liquid flow with any presence of gas, cm = c.
research purposes (Kerger et al. 2011; Bousso and Fuamba
After this brief explanation of the mathematical model,
2013). However, Godunov scheme is a useful numerical
the initial and boundary conditions to describe the drilling
tool for dealing with free-surface gravity flow, compress-
hydraulics are itemized as
ible flow or multiphase flow. Technical literature is very
Ux; 0; well data in 0 x L rich on these topics.
Qm 0; t; constant flow rate 3 Therefore, the main engineering contribution of this
pL; t; choke pressures: work is the solution and application of the first-order Go-
dunov scheme to analyze the transient hydraulics during
The first statement denotes the initial condition. It means actual oil-well drilling, because this numerical scheme is
that entire oil-well conditions are known at t = 0, usually easy to implement and encode in any programming lan-
considering static or steady well data. The second guage (Guinot 2001). Here, the chosen hydraulics of the
represents constant liquid flow rate at the left boundary. field operation is defined as managed pressure drilling. To
The last one corresponds to the right boundary condition achieve it, how to implement the set of initial and boundary
and it is closely related to managed pressure drilling. Both conditions taking in account the oil-well geometry and real
of them remove unnecessary complexity without operational conditions of the drilling hydraulics was dis-
sacrificing accuracy. cussed. The analysis and interpretation of the pressure
The discrete solution of the initial-boundary mathema- wave behavior traveling along the well are also included.
tical model applying the Godunov scheme is supported by Finally, the numerical results of the drilling simulation
a set of Riemann problems. All variables listed at U(x, t), are discussed in detail for the most important parameters:
Eq. 1 are evaluated at x = x0 according to choke pressure, pumping pressure, bottom-hole pressure,
8 9 and circulating flow rate; these are widely validated
< UL for x x0 cm t =
through reported oil-well data in a standard of the Amer-
Ux; t U for x0 cm t\x x0 cm t ; 4
: ; ican Petroleum Institute standards (API RP-13D 2003).
UR for x [ x0 cm t
where UL, U ; and UR are the left, intermediate, and right
states of the Riemann problem, respectively. These Basis of the Godunov scheme
definitions are relevant during the time integration process,
whereas the numerical fluxes are reconstructed. The final The Godunov scheme is extensively used for modeling
numerical model based on the finite-volume method is shock and contact discontinuities. Here, the steps of the
rigorously developed and solved using the definition of well-documented first-order Godunov scheme (Toro 2009)
Riemann problem (Eq. 4) for the entire physical domain are consistently applied to solve the complete set of the
and time length of simulation. transient model described by Eqs. 14. We start defining
Godunov scheme is a modern shock-capturing method local finite volumes or cells on the entire length of the
and its main advantage is that there is no need to track physical domain. The discretization is carried out on x axis
=1 =
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J Petrol Explor Prod Technol
2 3
from i = 1 to i = N and on the time spacing from t = n to
ub un1
41 5ln
n1=2
t = n ? 1. Figure 1 illustrates that left-hand and right- l1=2 1
n1=2
hand boundaries are located at i = 1/2, and i = N ? 1/2, cn1 cl1=2
respectively. Additionally, the internal cells are indicated 2 3 : 10
unN ub
by i = 1 to i = N. lN1=2 41 5ln
n1=2
n1=2 1
The flux computation for the internal interfaces
n1=2
Fi1=2 is cnN cl1=2
based on the next procedure After establishing the discrete equations of interface
" n1=2 #
Qm;i1=2 fluxes for internal and boundary cells, it is essential to
n1=2 n1=2
Fi1=2 F Ui1=2 n1=2 ; 5 assure numerical stability in all cells. Therefore, the next
Api1=2
step is to define a computational time step less than the
n1=2 maximum time step Dtmax
where Ui1=2 is the solution of the Riemann problems
stated at Eq. 4 for the cell interfaces. Taking in account the Min Dxi
Dtmax : 11
definition of Qm = lu, the first component is computed as i 1; . . .; N juj cm
n1=2 n1=2 n1=2 It is valid since an analytical solution is applied to
Qm;i1=2 li1=2 ui1=2 : 6
evaluate the source term.
For each internal interface located at i 1=2, from Finally, the evolution of U(x, t) from t = n to t = n ? 1
n1=2 n1=2 is assessed in two parts. The homogeneous pure advection
i = 1 to i = N - 1, both li1=2 and ui1=2 are calculated
part is solved by the balance over the timespace domain
from the next equations
9
n1=2 n1=2 n1=2 n1=2 =
cni ci1=2 li1=2 lni lni li1=2 ui1=2 uni 0
7
cni1 ci1=2 li1=2 lni1 lni1 li1=2 ui1=2 uni1 0 ;
n1=2 n1=2 n1=2 n1=2
Using an iterative process, the second component of the tn ; tn1 x11=2 ; x11=2 for all cells given as
n1=2
flux Api1=2 is computed by solving for p the relationship Dt n1=2 n1=2
Un1;x
i Uni Fi1=2 Fi1=2
between pressure and mass of the fluid Dxi
" n1;x # : 12
n1=2
li1=2 lRef li
Un1;x
Ah i i
1=h 1=h Qn1;x
2 p pRef pRef p1=h aqgRef pRef m;i
c
8 To incorporate the source term S Un1;xi , it is assumed
The treatment of boundary conditions is separately that there are no spatial variations for Ux; t; and Un1;x
i is
presented for a better understanding. The computing of the the starting point,
local interface fluxes at the left-hand i 1=2 and right-
Uin1 Un1;x
i S Un1;x
i Dt
hand (i = N ? 1/2) boundaries is carried out by a standard
2 3
process. For a prescribed pressure, they are respectively " # ln1;x
i
ln1 6 7; 13
Uin1
i
6 Qn1;x qgA 7
n1=2 cn1 cb lb ln1 n1
Qm;i 4 m;i
5
u1=2 un1
lb ln1 1
Qn1;x
m;i
fD Dt
: 9
n1=2 c cb lnN lb
n
uN1=2 unN N where Uin1 is the final solution at the end of the time step
lb lnN
t = n ? 1.
For the case of a prescribed flow discharge, left-hand However, there are other high-order schemes used to
(i = 1/2) and right-hand (i = N ? 1/2) boundaries are improve some numerical results. We only applied first-
given by order Godunovs method (Eqs. 513) which is easier to be
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Table 3 Geometry of the well sections described by depth and flow areas
Well section Depth (m) D1 (in) D2 (in) Dh (in) A (in2) Description
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Fig. 3 Onset of fluid circulating and pressure wave traveling through drill string and annulus
In Fig. 3 (right side), the well is flowing and the tech- Another critical parameter is the flowing bottom-hole
nique of managed pressure drilling can be analyzed. The pressure BHP (x = 3650 m and i = Nbh), given its varia-
blue (drill string) and red (annulus) lines indicate the pro- tions concerning with the pore pressure described in Fig. 1.
files of transient pressure as a result of controlled changes When the pressure choke Pch is step increased from 0 to
in the choke pressures (Table 1). For a better visualization 100 psi to 200 psi, the pumping pressure is smoothly in-
of wave traveling, the simulation of pressure profile is creased following the next relationship between t and
plotted for 7.9, 16.3, 24.7, and 33.3 s. The values of cor- Ppump, (0.1 s at 1607 psi), (7.4 s at 2058 psi), (14.8 s at
responding discontinuities are 87, 244, -277, and 2286 psi). However, when Pch is stepped down from 200 to
-42.6 psi, respectively. The minus sign (-) means that the 50 psi to 0 psi, there are two pressure wave fronts as fol-
pressure wave front decreases on the flow direction through lows (22.2 s at 23482551 psi), (29.6 s at 27722585 psi);
the annular space. finally, the calculated data are validated for 50 s at
In Fig. 4, we are summarizing the complete history of 1949 psi. This last Ppump is only 7 % different from
the simulation considering tMax 50 s. The predicted hy- Ppump = 2097 psi reported in the API RP-13D (2003).
draulics is validated against numerical data obtained from In the case of bottom-hole pressure BHP (3650 m), the
API RP-13D (2003). Once again, the red line indicates initial value of 7735 psi corresponds to the hydrostatic
annulus and blue line is for drill string. The right-hand head exerted by the mud density of 1.49 gr/cm3. After the
boundaries (i = N ? 1/2, Table 1) are sketched in the transient flow rate has crossed this depth, the BHP is
upper section, and the well scheme (Table 3) is depicted on mainly changing as a result of the stepped changes of Pch
the right side. The profiles of transient pressure (upper part) (Table 1) and the friction pressure drop in the annulus. The
and transient flow rate (lower part) are plotted separately at variations are as follows: (7.4 s at 8023 psi), (14.8 s at
well depths of surface (0 m), 1500 m (didactic simulation), 8111 psi), (22.2 at 8453 psi), and (29.6 s at 7902). Similar
and bottom hole (3650 m). to Ppump, we are validating the BHP = 7895 psi and
Bear in mind that for left-hand boundary (x = 0 m and BHP ? DPBit = 8993 psi against the pressures of 7979
i = 1/2), the liquid flow rate QL = 280 gpm is the known and 9005 psi, respectively. They have less than 1 % of
parameter and the pumping pressure Ppump is the worthy difference between computed and reported data (API RP-
computed parameter for oil-field drilling operations. 13D 2003).
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J Petrol Explor Prod Technol
Fig. 4 History of simulation including profiles of transient pressure and transient liquid flow rate
Special attention is focused on the profile of transient traveling along the oil well (Fig. 3). Next, at 14.8 s, there is
flow rate QL, (lower part, Fig. 4). The left-hand boundary a sudden decrease from 254.6 to 52 gpm as Pch changes up
(Eq. 3; Table 1), QL = 280 gpm remains constant for the to 200 psi. The opposite transient effect is reflected when
whole simulation. It is depicted by the blue line at 0 m. Pch decreases to 50 psi at 22.2 s, then QL rises from 148 to
However, in order to explain some slugging flow com- 498.5 gpm. The oil well continues discharging at 29.6 s,
monly observed at the surface end of the annular space, QL and the liquid flow rate slightly increases from 465 to
at the right boundary (i = N ? 1/2) shall be discussed in 503 gpm. This up-and-down behavior of the oil-well
detail. First, at 7.4 s, QL is increased from 0 to 283 gpm, hydraulics is supported by the criteria of mass conserva-
and it is related to the time spent by the pressure wave tion. Moreover, all of these QL variations affect directly the
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transient values of friction pressure drop, DPBit and Ppump. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the
Finally, the simulating conditions are unaltered until 50 s Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted
to converge to steady state defined by 280 gpm for all well use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give
sections. appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a
link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were
made.
Conclusions
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