Eventos Anais de eventos
ENCIT 2016
16th Brazilian Congress of Thermal Sciences and Engineering
NUMERICAL ANALYS OF THE DYNAMICS OF GAS BUBBLES IN A CENTRIFUGAL PUMP IMPELLER
Submission Author:
Moisés Marcelino Neto , PR
Co-Authors:
FELIPE CARLOS ANCAJIMA JIMENEZ, Henrique Stel, Dalton Bertoldi, Rigoberto Morales
Presenter: FELIPE CARLOS ANCAJIMA JIMENEZ
doi://10.26678/ABCM.ENCIT2016.CIT2016-0208
Abstract
Centrifugal pumps are widely used in the oil industry as an artificial lift technique. The existing gas in some oil reservoirs can cause head degradation in such pumps. The performance deterioration implies a reduced ability to raise pressure, which reduces the well oil production rate thus resulting in economic losses. However, the behavior of gas-liquid mixtures in centrifugal pumps is a complex subject that is virtually unexplored in the literature, and the numerical methods addressing this issue are scant to say the least. This work proposes a numerical study on the dynamics of a gas bubble inside the first stage of a radial centrifugal pump impeller. To achieve this objective, a particle-tracking approach is employed through a commercial CFD software. The study aims at analyzing the relevance of the drag force, the force due to the pressure gradient and the virtual mass force acting on a bubble flowing through the liquid in the rotating impeller channel. Numerical results are compared with previous experimental data obtained for two-phase flow of water and air through the same pump model. The behavior of the bubbles inside the impeller, the role played by each force in their motion and the functional relations between those forces and the operating conditions of the pump are all topics of concern to the present investigation.
Keywords
gas bubbles, dynamics, centrifugal pump, impeller, gas bubbles, dynamics, centrifugal pump, impeller, gas bubbles, dynamics, centrifugal pump, impeller
