Severe Slugging in Oil-Well Simulations Using a Drift Flux Code

To design and evaluate slugging control strategies, a simulator that is capable to simulate severe slugging accurately with limited CPU-needs is required; therefore a drift flux simulator was developed.

The drift-flux simulator was used to simulate a field case. The pressure drop was predicted very well. However, an additional horizontal length was needed in the simulations to obtain slugging. This additional requirement is in-line with known shortcomings of multiphase models identified in literature. Aside this criterion, also a minimum hydraulic jump was required. The current drift-flux simulator is suitable for case specific control strategy development and testing.