A Comprehensive Mechanistic Model for Upward Two-Phase Flow in Wellbores

Abstract

ABSTRACT A comprehensive model is formulated to predict the flow behavior for upward two-phase flow. The comprehensive model is composed of a model for flow pattern prediction and a set of independent models for predicting the flow characteristics such as holdup and pressure drop in bubble, slug and annular flows. The comprehensive model is evaluated by using a well databank that is composed of 1775 well cases covering a wide variety of field data. The performance of the model is also compared with the six commonly used empirical correlations. The overall performance of the model is in good agreement with the data. In comparison with the empirical correlations, the comprehensive model performs the best, with the least average error and the smallest scattering of the results.