Abstract
A fundamental study on porous medium flow of a highly compressible gas near a wellbore is carried out. The effect of gas acceleration is assessed quantitatively. It is shown that gas acceleration induced by the converging flow introduces a quadratic drag on the flow; acceleration due to volumetric-expansion causes the pressure curve to steepen near the wellbore and the flow to become choked at high flow-rates. When the flow is choked, the pressure gradient at the wellbore wall becomes unbounded. It is also shown that for any given mass flow-rate, the well pressure predicted from the model considering acceleration effect is significantly below that calculated from the Darcy-Forchheimer model. Implications of these results to petroleum engineering are discussed.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 011301 |
Journal | Journal of Fluids Engineering, Transactions of the ASME |
Volume | 134 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2012 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Mechanical Engineering