A Dual-Directional Flow Control Device for Cyclic Steam Stimulation Applications

Summary Cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) is one the most effective thermal recovery methods. It is widely used as the primary thermal recovery method to recover heavy oil fields in the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific region, and North and South America. In this paper, a novel dual-directional flow control device (FCD) will be introduced. This FCD technology can allocate accurate steam outflow into the reservoir formation and improve steam quality during the steam injection period and can mitigate steam breakthrough from the neighboring wells during the production period. In the first section, we give a brief introduction on CSS and the main issues encountered in the field operation. A multidirectional flow control nozzle specifically designed for CSS application will be presented. Design philosophy in thermodynamics and hydrodynamics of the nozzle will be discussed in detail. Field performance results, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and flow loop testing data will be shown to evaluate the performance of the technology. The application of the technology in steam-assisted thermal applications will be introduced. Well-known issues such as erosion and scaling on the FCD tools will be studied in the end.

A Dual-Directional Flow Control Device for Cyclic Steam Stimulation CSS Applications

Cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) is one the most effective thermal recovery methods. It is widely used as the primary thermal recovery method to recovery heavy oil fields in Middle East, Asia Pacific, North and South America. In this paper, a novel dual-directional flow control device (FCD) will be introduced. This FCD technology can allocate accurate steam outflow into the reservoir formation and improve steam quality during steam injection period and can mitigate steam breakthrough from the neighboring wells during production period. In the first section, we will give a brief introduction on CSS and the main issues encountered in the field operation. A multi-directional flow control nozzle specifically designed for CSS application will be presented. Design philosophy in thermodynamics and hydrodynamics of the nozzle will be discussed in detail. Field performance results, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and flow loop testing data will be shown to evaluate the performance of the technology. The application of the technology in steam assisted thermal applications will be introduced. Well-known issues such as erosion and scaling on the FCD tools will be studied in the end.

Membrane Surface Morphology before and after the Reversible Hydrogen Doping of Diffusion Filters

Atomic force microscopy (АFМ) and high-precision scanning electron microscopy methods were used to study the surface of diffusion filter-membranes of alloy Pd93Y7. The formation of alterations in structure in one of membranes was established as a result from the homogenizing annealing at 900°C for 1 hours. It was found that the reversible doping of the membrane alloy with hydrogen caused the dispersion of the diffusion filter-membranes’ surface structure. Differences in changes by the surface structure are determined during the hydrogenation in directional and non-directional flow of hydrogen.

New Approach to Melt Pressure Determination during Screw Channel Flow

Basic equations describing steady, two-directional, isothermal and fully developed drag-pressure flow of generalized Newtonian fluid between parallel plates assumed as the appropriate flow model in flat, shallow screw channel, are given. It is shown that the flow output for any generalized Newtonian fluid in the two-directional case can be described by a simple expression with a few parameters depending in a complicated way on pressure gradient, channel geometry and constants of the constitutive model. The expression is also valid for unidirectional flow as the limiting case of the two-directional flow. The parameters must be determined as a rule with numerical methods. To simplify the practical calculations, a few (semi)analytical methods of parameters determination for unidirectional power law flow are discussed first. These methods make possible to calculate analytically the pressure gradient for known output that is typical of screw flow characterization. The results obtained for the unidirectional flow 1-D were generalized to describe the two-directional flow 2-D, which takes into account both longitudinal and transverse velocity components. The generalization is based on translation and dilation of the 1-D flow characteristics by introducing a few additional parameters, which are only dependent on the helix angle and power law exponent. It was found a very good agreement between exact numerical and approximate ( semi)analytical characteristics for both flows.