Benchmark Dataset No. 16

What types of solids are flowing in your multiphase wells or pipelines? Are they cohesive, sand-like, aeratable, flocculated, spoutable? When will your solids deposit? What is your critical sand loading velocity? When will your proppants flocculate and when will they settle, and where along your lateral? Before you can effectively can answer any of these multiphase solids transport problems, you need to first understand the simplest case of low solids flux dilute conveying solids transport. This is when you have a low volumetric concentration of solids flowing with either your gas (for high rate gas wells with sand problems) or low solids concentration liquid-solid slurries. Here, the goal is understand what actually changes when a small volume of solids is added to your multiphase (or single-phase) flow stream. This is a necessary starting point for the bigger problem of what changes when you have a larger volume of sand in the flowing mixture.

And this in a vital problem. For many, ESP failures are dominated by sand fallback, much more so than gas lock. Reliably knowing your critical sand loading (onset of sand reversal) velocities as your wellbore trajectory and diameters change can mean huge savings in optimizing your pump performance. Ever worked on very high rate gas well in unconsolidated sands? A lack of improved understanding of sand transport will directly show when you are frequently changing out chokes due to erosion because of the constant under-prediction of erosion velocity if you don't fully understand the huge effect of the gas-solids slip on your velocities and pressures. And no, gas-liquid volume fraction models do not (in general) scale for gas-solids or liquid-solids. It is easy show how far such scaled models can be.

Indeed, there are a lot of new things to be discovered in the world of solids transport and solids deposition that can add direct and sustained value for your production, facilities (flow assurance) and completion operations. But..... like most things ...... we must base our understanding on high quality data. Fortunately, solids transport in multiphase flow is a vibrant area in many industries and there is certainly no lack of data. The folks who claim otherwise are either ignorant or purposefully deceptive. In this vein, I will start to share a lot more solids transport datasets as part of the #nagoobenchmarkseries.

So, continuing on the multiphase flow benchmark dataset series, here is Dataset No. 16. The modeling goal for this pneumatic conveying gas and sand-like glass beads (Geldart Group B) solids lab dataset is to generate the total pressure gradient and solid volume fraction in a vertical tube. Measured total pressure gradient and solids volume fraction data are available in the original reference for comparisons to predictions.

For any multiphase flow modeler new to this benchmark series, refer to the original article here for context and general information.

Enjoy!

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