Browsing by Subject "ESP"
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Item CFD Simulation and Experimental Testing of Multiphase Flow Inside the MVP Electrical Submersible Pump(2012-08-16) Rasmy Marsis, Emanuel 1983-The MVP is a special type of Electrical Submersible Pumps (ESPs) manufactured by Baker Hughes, model no. G470, and is capable of handling multiphase flow up to 70% Gas Volume Fraction (GVF). Flows at high GVF cause conventional ESPs to surge. However, the special design of the impeller blades of the MVP ESP enables it to handle higher GVF. Dynamic behavior of the multiphase flow is studied experimentally and theoretically for this pump for the first time. In this work, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of an entire pump and detailed experimental analysis are performed. Meshing and CFD simulations are performed using the commercially available software ANSYS Fluent. An experimental facility has been designed and constructed to test the pump at different operating conditions. The pump is modeled and tested at two speeds; 3300 and 3600 rpm, using air-water mixtures with GVFs of 0, 5, 10, 25, 32 and 35%. The flow loop is controlled to produce different suction pressures up to 300psi. Pump pressure head is used to validate the CFD model for both single and two phase flows. Single phase CFD model was validated at 100 psi inlet pressure, while two phase models were validated at 200 psi inlet pressure. CFD simulations can predict the behavior of the pump at different speeds, flow rates, GVFs, and inlet pressures. Different diffuser designs are studied and simulated to improve the multistage pump performance. Enhanced diffuser designs increased the pump pressure head to up to 3.2%.Item Effects of Sand on the Components and Performance of Electric Submersible Pumps(2012-08-15) Carvajal Diaz, Nicolas 1985-The increasing world demand for oil has pushed oil companies to extract it from the ocean at extreme depths. With the increase in depth comes an increase in operation costs, especially the deep-sea equipment changeover cost. To be able to push the oil to the ocean surface, Electrical Submersible Pumps (ESPs) are commonly used as artificial lift. The changeover cost of these pumps in deep-water has been estimated to sometimes be as much as forty times the cost of a new pump. One common reason for the failure of ESPs is the erosion and abrasion created by the fine sands that seep through the gravel pack mesh in the well hole. These fine sand particles are most destructive to the bearings and bushings due to their capability to enter the clearances lubricated by the pumped fluid. Over time, the sustained abrasion and erosion in the different components of the ESP will affect the performance of the pump and could lead to its damage. This work describes the design, construction and evaluation of an erosion test rig built at the facilities of the Turbomachinery Laboratory in Texas A&M University. The test rig is capable of introducing 100 mesh (6 mil) sand into the flow loop, measure its concentration and separate it at the exit with minimal water loss. The pump under study is a Baker Hughes 10.25" WJE1000. The performance of the pump is described by measuring the head, flow rate, power and efficiency. The pump is equipped with accelerometers to detect the casing vibration as well as proximity probes in five locations along the pump to detect the internal vibrations of the shaft near the bearings as well as impeller radial movement. The baseline data, to be used for comparison with the worn out pump, has been shown and recommendations for the study method and operation of the rig are given.Item Evaluating modular neuroevolution in robotic keepaway soccer(2012-12) Subramoney, Anand; Miikkulainen, Risto; Stone, PeterKeepaway is a simpler subtask of robot soccer where three `keepers' attempt to keep possession of the ball while a `taker' tries to steal it from them. This is a less complex task than full robot soccer, and lends itself well as a testbed for multi-agent systems. This thesis does a comprehensive evaluation of various learning methods using neuroevolution with Enforced Sub-Populations (ESP) with the robocup soccer simulator. Both single and multi-component ESP are evaluated using various learning methods on homogeneous and heterogeneous teams of agents. In particular, the effectiveness of modularity and task decomposition for evolving keepaway teams is evaluated. It is shown that in the robocup soccer simulator, homogeneous agents controlled by monolithic networks perform the best. More complex learning approaches like layered learning, concurrent layered learning and co-evolution decrease the performance as does making the agents heterogeneous. The results are also compared with previous results in the keepaway domain.Item Experimental Study of Multiphase Pump Wear(2014-08-06) Steck, Daniel D'AndreaThe goal of this research is to better understand upstream Oil & Gas Electric Submersible Pump (ESP) reliability issues. The objective of this research is to determine how Liquid-Gas-Particulate (LGP) turbine pump wear differs from Liquid-Particulate (LP) turbine pump wear. This objective is novel because little is known about LGP wear, yet such wear is common in ESPs. To accomplish the research objective, an experimental study of a gas handling ESP was conducted. Tests of two Baker Hughes 1025 MVP G400 Severe Duty turbine pumps were conducted with water, air, and sand. One pump was tested with a Gas Volume Fraction (GVF) of 20% while the other was tested with a GVF of 0%. It was found that particulates migrate radially outward through the pump and cause diffuser sidewall wear to increase through the pump. It was also found that various impeller flow path areas experience more LGP wear than LP wear. In general, pump wear progress faster for LGP wear than for LP wear. It is believed that this is caused primarily by the thinning effect that gas can have on a fluid?s viscosity.Item Three Phase Erosion Testing and Vibration Analysis of an Electrical Submersible Pump(2014-01-13) Zheng, DezhiElectrical Submersible Pump (ESP) has been recognized as an excellent artificial lifting method in industry due to its high liquid flow rate in both onshore and offshore applications. As oil exploration goes deep into water, ESP equipment is facing a crucial problem of slurry erosion which may affect life and cost significantly. The wear caused by slurry erosion may bring the issue such as unbalanced side loads, severe vibration and decreased pressure head. Eventually, this phenomenon will lead to a complete system failure. In present work, a systematic study on the erosion wear has been carried out in order to give better understanding. The WJE-1000 ESP pump manufactured by Baker Hughes has been employed in this study. During the whole procedure, 117 hours two-phase (water-sand) testing has been performed and is followed by 68 hours three-phase (watersand- air) testing. A combined analysis by combining components erosion wear measurement, pump performance testing and vibration signal process has clearly indicated the trend of erosion process on each component. Furthermore, the correlation between vibration signals collected by proximity probe and remote 3D accelerometer provided a future direction for monitoring inaccessible downhole equipment. Finally, the conclusion that air could further accelerate ESP erosion has been found by comparing the erosion rate and vibration signals in two-phase test and three-phase test.