Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2019
25th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
STUDY OF ISOLATED GAS BUBBLE DYNAMICS IN A CENTRIFUGAL ROTOR
Submission Author:
Fabio Ernesto Mancilla Ramos , PR
Co-Authors:
Higor Veiga, Edgar Ofuchi, Henrique Stel, Fabio Ernesto Mancilla Ramos, Dalton Bertoldi, Rigoberto Morales
Presenter: Higor Veiga
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2019.COB2019-0804
Abstract
Nowadays, the use of electrical submersible pumps as a technique of artificial elevation, is one of the most common techniques in the petroleum industry. However, due to the presence of gas in most oil reservoirs, the pumps could operate in two-phase flow conditions. In this case, the presence of gas in the channels of the rotor of the pump can cause a degradation of its performance, reducing its head capacity. In order to understand how the performance degradation process of centrifugal pumps occurs, it is necessary to analyze the dynamics of the gas inside the rotor. Thus, the present work aims to study the behavior of isolated gas bubbles inside the rotor channels of a centrifugal pump. For this purpose an experimental setup in the NUEM-UTFPR laboratory was used. In order to be able to visualize the flow inside the rotor channels, the pump was provided with a rotor and housing constructed from a transparent material. A high-speed camera was coupled on the rotor shaft and images were acquired in a rotating reference frame. Additionally, by employing an image processing and a tracking algorithm the bubbles sizes and trajectories were found. It was observed that as the liquid flow rate is decreased the bubble paths were modified and the rotational speed of the rotor becomes dominant.
Keywords
centrifugal pump, gas bubbles, high-speed image processing
