Fluid Dynamic and Performance Behavior of Multiphase Progressive Cavity Pumps

It is common for an oil well to produce a mixture of hydrocarbons that flash when exposed to atmospheric pressure. The separation of oil and gas mixtures on site may prove expensive and lead to higher infrastructure and maintenance costs as well. A multiphase pump offers a good alternative with a lower capital cost and increased overall production.

A Progressive Cavity Pump (PCP) is a positive displacement pump type that can be used to pump a wide range of multiphase mixtures, including high viscosity fluids with entrained gas and solid particles in suspension. Despite its advantages, a PCP has a reduced ability to handle high gas-liquid ratios due to limitations of its elastomeric stator material required to overcome thermo and mechanical effects. Also the efficiency decreases significantly with increases in gas volume fractions and reduced differential pressures.

The current study focuses on studying the behavior of this unique pump in a wide range of GVFs and studying the effect of this ratio on overall efficiency, temperature and pressure distribution on the stator. The pump exhibits vibration issues at specific differential pressures and they have been studied in this work. This can be of critical value as severe vibration issues can damage the pump components such as couplings and bearings leading to high maintenance costs.

Another important issue addressed by this research is the behavior of this pump in transient conditions. Oil well production is highly unpredictable with unexpected rises and drops in GVFs. These transient conditions have been simulated by varying the GVF over wide ranges and studying the pump's behavior in terms of load, temperature rises and instantaneous pressure profiles on the pump stator.

This thesis provides a comprehensive study of this pump, its operating ranges and behavior in off-design conditions to assist oil and gas exploration ventures in making an informed choice in pump selection for their applications based on field conditions.