Experimental Evidence of the Applicability of Colebrook and Borda Carnot-Type Head Loss Formulas in Transient Slug Test Analysis
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 134, Issue 5
Abstract
Radius changes along the flow path inside a well can have a substantial nonlinear impact on head responses to a slug test. The present paper investigates the applicability of head loss formulas rooted in steady-state pipe hydraulics to account for minor and major head losses in transient slug test analysis. Such nonlinear head losses, which frequently occur when using a packer for test initiation, have not systematically been investigated before. Packer-internal turbulence is accounted for based on Colebrook’s formula, while minor head losses originating at the inlet and outlet of the packer are treated by Borda Carnot-type head loss formulas. The analysis of a specifically designed set of 12 slug tests provides extended experimental evidence of the applicability of these nonlinear head loss formulas when accounting for well bore-internal turbulence and minor head losses in transient slug test analysis.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the German National Science Foundation (DFG) under Grant No. DFGPE-362/24-2. The writer would like to express his gratitude to Dr. D. Riedel (computer center ZEDAT of the Free University of Berlin) for providing access to a Silicon Graphics Origin 3400, on which the computations needed to evaluate the inner integral of Eq. (5) were performed. The writer is also indebted to Mr. M. Recker and Mr. S. Kuhn for providing help in conducting the field tests, and to Mr. D. Lange for aiding the evaluation of the roughness of the packer flow-through pipes.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 134 • Issue 5 • May 2008
Pages: 644 - 651
Copyright
© 2008 ASCE.
History
Received: Feb 16, 2007
Accepted: Aug 31, 2007
Published online: May 1, 2008
Published in print: May 2008
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