1. Modeling Transient Heat Transport in Wells
A typical shut-off or restarting a well producing oil or gas triggers rate, pressure, and temperature transients of the wellbore fluid. Estimates of transient fluid temperature in such situations is important in designing wells and analyzing data from existing systems. Oils containing wax or asphaltene require knowledge of transient fluid temperatures for operators to avoid flow line blockage from solids deposition.
We have developed an analytic expression for transient fluid temperature by decoupling heat transport from the other two transport processes. The model includes numerical differentiation that remove some of the assumptions involved in the initial model. The model’s estimation compared favorably with data from various fields; the results have been published in a refereed journal in 2007; further work has been presented at an international meeting in Dec
This work has given us the impetus to work further on coupled transient transport processes.