MODELING AND SIMULATION OF TRANSIENT FLOW CHARACTERISTICS IN A PRODUCING GAS WELL

Abstract

Modeling transient flow characteristics in a producing gas well has been a problem long over in natural gas industry due to parameter changing during operation.  In the past, authors concentrate on application of correlations and steady state approach, but most of their works does not give satisfactory results because the used applications neglect the transient aspect leading to premature closure of most wells.  Many existing models are proposed to correct these anomalies using simplified governing equation ignoring the transient aspect of the flow characteristics. A one-dimensional transient compressible model comparing the conservation of mass, momentum and energy has been presented to investigate the transient behavior of flow characteristics in a producing gas well staged at different inclination due to environment change.  The model is solved numerically using the implicit Steger-Warming flux vector splitting method (FSM).  The work investigates flow characteristics along depth of the well using different wellbore diameter of 0.073m, 0.0883m, at different time and different thermal conductivities. It shows that transient occurs due to the temperature difference between the produced gas and the flow environment while gas pressure increases due to difference between wellbore pressure and reservoir pressure. The result of this work reflect gas flow law and the characteristics of heat transfer in formation.