Accepted Manuscript

Numerical investigation of two-phase fluid flow in a perforation tunnel

M.J. Ahammad, M.A. Rahman, L. Zheng, J. Alam, S.D. Butt

PII: S1875-5100(17)30404-3
DOI: 10.1016/j.jngse.2017.10.016
Reference: JNGSE 2328

To appear in: Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering

Received Date: 31 January 2017

Revised Date: 29 October 2017
Accepted Date: 29 October 2017

Please cite this article as: Ahammad, M.J., Rahman, M.A., Zheng, L., Alam, J., Butt, S.D., Numerical
investigation of two-phase fluid flow in a perforation tunnel, Journal of Natural Gas Science &
Engineering (2017), doi: 10.1016/j.jngse.2017.10.016.

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Numerical Investigation of Two-Phase Fluid Flow in a Perforation Tunnel
M. J. Ahammad1, M. A. Rahman2, L. Zheng1, J. Alam1, S. D. Butt1
1
Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
2
Texas A&M University at Qatar

Abstract: The reservoir productivity index depends on the performance of fluid flow
through the perforated tunnels. Experimentally, it was observed that higher fluid flow

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rate occurs in perforation by drilling technique compare to the traditional shooting
technique. This behavior is favorable for the increased hydrocarbon production from a
formation. The better understanding of formation damage mechanisms for various

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reservoir conditions can be optimized for the economic benefits and managerial
decision. The perforation by drilling (PD) technique is proposed as an alternative
perforation technique since this technique induces less formation damage.

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Experimental and numerical investigations are ongoing research in this regards. The
primary results of the two-phase fluid flow through porous media to a perforation
tunnel are modelled using ANSYS CFX-15 platform. The numerical data were

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validated with the experimental data. The effects of different petro-physical properties
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were analyzed in the simulation such as permeability, porosity, fluid viscosity, flow
rates, and injection pressure.
Keywords: Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), perforation, porous media,
two-phase flow.
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1. Introduction
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Recent years, the proportion of natural gas is increasing significantly for the
adjustment of energy sources structure and the fast development of urban fuel gas
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industry (Wu et al., 2016). Nevertheless, natural gas is often extracted with water in
most gas fields. This indicates that multiphase flow, especially gas-water two-phase
flow, is more common in a gas reservoir. In addition to oil and gas fields, the theory of
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multiphase flow in porous media can also provide more information to understand the
flow phenomena in aquifer and CO2 storage (Horgue et al., 2014). Thus, the research
in multiphase flow through porous media is of profound importance in many active
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research area such as petroleum engineering applications.

The perforation is a communication media that connects the reservoir formation with
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the wellbore to produce oil or gas. The perforation is created to increase the production
rate, though there are some disadvantages of the perforation which leads to damage the
virgin reservoir (Renpu, 2011). There are different types of technique for perforation
(Behrmann, et al., 2002). The performance of perforation depends not only various
perforation characteristics such as length, radius, density, phasing angle, but also
perforation techniques (Economides et al., 1994). A proper perforation technique can
increase the production by 10–20% (Bell and Clark, 2009). The perforation technique
for the gas reservoir is different than the oil reservoirs (Civan, F., 2015). The influence
of the well completion and perforation performance, and ultimately reservoir life fully
depends on the productivity index (Dake, L. P. ,2001). . All these factors are subject to
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many investigations. Numerous researches were conducted towards the perforation
performance including skin factors, low to high permeability, reservoirs heterogeneity
etc. Landman and Goldthorpe (1991) presented a mathematical model to investigate the
effects of the perforation distribution of a horizontal well under a steady state inflow
condition. Hagoort (2007) studied an analytical model for the prediction of the
perforated wells. Single‐phase Darcy flow through a single perforation in a semi‐
infinite porous medium is considered in that case.
Rahman et al (2007) compared the perforation by drilling technique with traditional

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perforation technique by shooting (PS) for single phase flow. Further, Rahman et al
(2007a) studied the skin effect due to perforation with the same approach. In both work,
they found that during the PS technique fine particles get redistributed around the

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perforation tunnel. The redistribution reduces the pore throat size which is liable for
permeability reduction significantly. As a result, the flow rates decreases at the same
level of differential pressure.

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However, the reduction of permeability by the traditional perforation techniques have
not been thoroughly investigated with multiphase flow in petroleum production
engineering, especially in the gas reservoirs (Rahman et al., 2007). In this article, we

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propose a novel technique for the perforation called perforation by drilling (PD). We
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investigate the improvement of the reservoir productivity index with this technique for
the two-phase flow. In this study, we also get more information on the formation
damage due to tradition perforation methods. This new technique of perforation can be
applied to the EOR process for injecting solvent or fluid. The schematic diagram of the
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perforation tunnel and related formation damage is exhibited in the Figure 1 with other
components of the hydrocarbon reservoir in brief.
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Figure 1: Sketch of an idealized reservoir well configuration with horizontal wellbore

involving variety of the reservoir elements such as perforation tunnel, formation
damage undamaged reservoir region etc.
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2. Experimental procedure
A laboratory experimental set-up is presented in Figure 2. A brief literature review
shows that the experimental investigation of perforation techniques are based on
simplified assumptions (see, Rahman et al., 2007). Due to laboratory constrained most
of the experimental studies are conducted by neglecting some important reservoir
properties such as actual reservoir pressure, axial load, drawdown pressure, and
thermal effects. In the present study, a higher confining pressure, axial load, and

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drawdown pressure are maintained to simulate the in-situ conditions and
comparatively larger core sample is used. During the experiment, a specific volume of
water was injected into the core sample. Meanwhile, the porosity was changed to

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observe the change of pressure buildup profiles in the core samples.

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Figure 2. The Schematic diagram of the experiment. (1) Core Sample, (2) and (3)
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Pump, (4) Hydraulic, (5) Outer shell, (6) liquid accumulator, (7) filter, (8) Lower part
of the chamber, (9) Upper part of the chamber, (10) and (11) Sealing rubber, (12) DAQ
system (Data Acquisition) system.
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3. CFD simulation technique

ANSYS is a well-known commercial software that assists to model fluid flow and other
related fluid phenomena. ANSYS CFX is a high-performance simulation tool that has
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been applied to solve wide-ranging of fluid flow problems with reliable and accurate
solutions (Molina & Tyagi, 2015, Chen et al., 2006). We use ANSYS CFX-15 for
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numerical simulations through a perforated tunnel in a reservoir well. Geometry of a

cylindrical core sample with a perforated hole at the center is used for the numerical
simulations. A finite volume mesh with a smaller grid size and higher smoothing is
used for more accurate results. The representation of the perforation in the formation
pay zone and the simulated sample is presented in Figure 3a. The validation of the
CFD simulations for the perforation by drilling is done with the results of
Rahman et al. (2007) (see for detail, Zheng et al., 2016). The result is presented in
Figure 3b. It is evident that the CFD data is well agreed with the experimental data of
Rahman et al. (2007). The dimensions of the geometry were kept the same size as the
real core sample used in the experiments (Table 1).
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Table 1. The Dimensions of the Computational Geometry

Parameters Values
Sample Diameter/ cm 15.24
Hole Diameter/ cm 2.54
Sample Height/ cm 30.48
Perforation Depth/ cm 25.4

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Figure 3a. The computation geometry of the core sample (Zheng et al., 2016).
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4. Results and Discussions

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The results presented here are a continuous research and extension of Zheng et al.
(2016). To overcome the challenge of scaling-up of the model, we have presented all
the data in non-dimensional form. The x-axis is presented by non-dimensional time
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t/Ttotal and y-axis is presented by Euler number (Eu). Euler number (Eu) is the ratio of
pressure force (P) to inertia force (ρV2 i.e. density times squared velocity). Euler
number helps to understand the fluid flow when the pressure difference between two
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points is important.
In all the cases of simulations, mixture of water and air is injected into the core
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sample for two-phase flow. Three core samples with different values of permeability
are used to observe the effect of pressure buildup profile with time. The results are
presented in Figure 4. The injection pressure will increase gradually before the
steady-state condition is achieved. When the permeability is low, higher injection
pressure is needed to inject a specific volume of mixture fluid into the core sample
and a slightly longer time is required to reach the steady state.

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Figure 3b. Validation of CFD model with the experimental results.

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0.70
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0.60

0.50
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0.40
Eu ×107

0.30
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0.20
k1=0.011um2
0.10
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k2=0.02um2
0.00 k3=0.34um2
0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 1.20
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t/T (-)
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Figure 4. The Effect of Permeability on Injection Pressure.

Figure 5 describes how the porosity influences the injection pressure for the mixture
fluid. The porosity has less effects on the pressure after the steady-state condition is
achieved. This is because the porosity does not influence the injection pressure of any
one of the mixture fluid. However, the porosity affects the pressure profile before the
steady-state for a lower porosity sample. The pressure profile achieves higher value in
case of low porosity sample, compared to the other high porosity samples. The Jamin
effect is dominant in case of low porosity sample before the steady-state condition is
achieved.
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We investigate the two-phase flow considering water flow rate as constant and
changing the flow rate of air. The results are exhibited in the Figure 6. The
investigation confirms that the steady-state is mainly determined by the flow rate of
water while the flow rate of air mainly affects the unstable stage. When a specific
volume of water in injected into a sample remains constant and volume of air injected
into a sample increases, time required to be steady-state condition will be shorter. Air
helps to reduce the frictional pressure and static pressure loss in the porous medium.

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8.00

7.00

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6.00

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5.00
Eu ×107

4.00

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φ=0.15
3.00
φ=0.24
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2.00 φ=0.28

1.00
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0.00
0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 1.20
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t/T (-)
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Figure 5. The Effect of Porosity on Injection Pressure.

Similarly, the back pressure effect is also presented for two-phase flow in Figure 7.
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The backpressure in wellbore has little effect on the pressure buildup profile. The
pressure buildup time is mainly affected by the injected fluid, not on the wellbore
pressure. The effect of temperature is studied during the two-phase flow and the
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simulation results are presented in the Figure 8. The injection pressure also decreases
as temperature increases due to the decrease of liquid viscosity at higher temperature.
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However, the time to reach steady-state condition with changing viscosity has almost
no effect on the pressure buildup profile.

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18.00
Qw=10cm3/s, Qa=10cm3/s
16.00
Qw=10cm3/s, Qa=20cm3/s
14.00 Qw=10cm3/s, Qa=30cm3/s
Qw=10cm3/s, Qa=40cm3/s
12.00
10.00
Eu ×107

8.00

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6.00
4.00

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2.00

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0.00
0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00
t/T (-)

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Figure 6. The Effect of Air Flow Rate on Injection Pressure.
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8.00
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7.00

6.00
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5.00
Eu ×107

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4.00
pw=0
3.00
pw=0.1MPa
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2.00
pw=0.3MPa
1.00
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0.00
0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00
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t/T (-)

Figure 7. The Effect of Back Pressure on Injection Pressure.

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12.00

10.00

8.00
Eu ×107

6.00

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4.00 T=10C

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T=20C
2.00
T=25C

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0.00
0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00
t/T (-)

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Figure 8. The Effect of Temperature on Injection Pressure.

5. Conclusions and future work

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Based on the CFD study, the following conclusions can be drawn:

1. Fluid flow from hydrocarbon reservoir to perforation tunnel can be conducted
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using ANSYS CFX 15 platform.

2. The pressure buildup in the porous medium is greatly affected by gas flow rate,
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permeability of the medium, and temperature of the fluid.

3. The wellbore pressure, and porosity have less effect on the pressure buildup
profile in a porous medium.
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4. The dominant factor for the breakthrough of a fluid in a core sample is the gas
flow rate.
5. Incorporation of gas flow in a porous system will reduce hydrostatic pressure
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loss and less time is required to active the breakthrough time.

This numerical study helps to develop a larger scale experimental investigation which
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is underway at Drilling Technology Laboratory in the Memorial University of

Newfoundland.
6. References
[1] Wu, D., Ju, B., & Brantson, E. T. (2016). Investigation of productivity decline in
tight gas wells due to formation damage and Non-Darcy effect: Laboratory,
mathematical modeling and application. Journal of Natural Gas Science and
Engineering, 34, 779-791.
[2] Horgue, P., Soulaine, C., Franc, J., Guibert, R., & Debenest, G. (2015). An
open-source toolbox for multiphase flow in porous media. Computer Physics
Communications, 187, 217-226.
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[3] Renpu, W. (2011). Advanced well completion engineering. Gulf Professional
Publishing.
[4] Behrmann LA, Hughes K, Johnson AB, Walton IC. New Underbalanced
Perforating Technique Increases Completion Efficiency and Eliminates Costly
Acid Stimulation. In SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition 2002
Jan 1. Society of Petroleum Engineers.
[5] Economides, M. J., Hill, A. D., Ehlig-Economides, C., & Zhu, D.
(2012). Petroleum production systems. Pearson Education.

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[6] Bell, M. R. G., & Clark, N. G. (2009). Reactive Perforating–Putting the
Exclamation Point on a Great Well. In American Association of Drilling
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Louisiana.
[7] Civan, F. (2015). Reservoir formation damage. Gulf Professional Publishing.
[8] Dake, L. P. (2001). The practice of reservoir engineering (revised edition).

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Elsevier.
[9] Landman M. J., Goldthorpe W. H., Optimisation of Perforation Distribution
for Horizontal Wells. SPE 23005, presented at the SPE Asia Pacific

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Conference, Perth, Australia, November 4–7, 1991. Society of Petroleum
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Engineers.
[10] Hagoort, J. (2007). An analytical model for predicting the productivity of
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[11] Rahman, M. A., Mustafiz, S., Biazar, J., Koksal, M., & Islam, M. R. (2007).
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by drilling. Journal of the Franklin Institute, 344(5), 777-789.

[12] Rahman, M. A., Mustafiz, S., Koksal, M., & Islam, M. R. (2007a).
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Quantifying the skin factor for estimating the completion efficiency of

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[13] Molina O, Tyagi M. A Computational Fluid Dynamics Approach to Predict

Pressure Drop and Flow Behavior in the Near Wellbore Region of a
Frac-Packed Gas Well. In ASME 2015 34th International Conference on Ocean,
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Offshore and Arctic Engineering 2015 May 31 (pp.

V010T11A023-V010T11A023). American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
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[14] Chen, Z., Huan, G., & Ma, Y. (2006). Computational methods for multiphase
flows in porous media. Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
[15] Zheng L, Rahman M A, Ahammad M J, Butt S D, Alam J M. Experimental
and Numerical Investigation of a Novel Technique for Perforation in Petroleum
Reservoir. In SPE International Conference and Exhibition on Formation
Damage Control 2016 Feb 24. Society of Petroleum Engineers.

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Highlights

 A numerical model for fluid flow from a hydrocarbon reservoir to a wellbore through
perforated tunnels has been analyzed using the ANSYS CFX 15 platform.
 The pressure buildup test in a near wellbore reservoir is greatly influenced by gas flow rate,
permeability of the medium, and temperature of the fluid.
 The wellbore pressure and porosity have less effect on the pressure buildup profile in a

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near wellbore reservoir.
 The breakthrough of liquid hydrocarbon in a near wellbore reservoir is enhanced by the
gas flow rate.

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 The presence of gas flow in a near wellbore formation reduces hydrostatic pressure loss
and less time is required to active the breakthrough time.

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