Design of Progressive Cavity Pump Wells

Desheng Zhou, SPE, Hong Yuan, SPE, IHS INC.

Copyright 2008, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2008 SPE Progressing Cavity Pump Conference held
in Houston, Texas, U.S.A., 2729 April 2008.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of
information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not
been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s).
The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its
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without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to
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Abstract

Progressive cavity pumps (PCPs) are a special type of rotary positive displacement pumps. PCP was
first introduced in petroleum engineering as an artificial lift method in 1970s, and is becoming a
popular lift tool for its advantages of broader applications, less maintenance, and higher efficiency.
PCP performances have been studied for many years, but no published paper has discussed the
relation of pump performances with well performances systematically.

This paper analyzes the system performances of PCP wells. Using nodal analysis method, the paper
presents algorithms and procedures to design pump rotational speed and production rate from well
inflow and outflow performances. For the effect of viscosity on pump volumetric slip, unlike
traditional methods of trying to set up a general correlation for all PCP types, the paper propose a
method to correct the effect of viscosity on each pumps catalog performance curves, and
demonstrates how to use the corrected performances to design the pumping of viscous fluid.

By unfolding a PCP cavity and using simplified slot flow, this paper presents correlations to
determine the critical pump intake pressures for filling pump cavity completely for Newtonian and
non-Newtonian fluids.

The presented algorithms can be used not only to design a PCP well for pump rotational speed and
production rate, but also to analyze the performance of a PCP pumping well. The presented
correlations of the viscosity effect on slippage and the critical pump intake pressure are useful in PCP
design and system analysis.

Introduction

Progressive cavity pumps (PCPs) are a special type of rotary positive displacement pumps, and were
first introduced in petroleum engineering as an artificial lift method in 1970s. In a PCP, the flow
through the pump is almost axial, while in all other rotary pumps, pumping fluid is forced to travel
circumferentially. This gives PCP unique axial flow pattern and low internal velocity, which reduces
fluid agitation and churning and therefore reduces fluids emulsion and solids erosion.
PCP has advantages of lower investment, broader applications to fluid mixtures, less maintenance,
and higher efficiency to other artificial lift methods. It is becoming a popular lift tool and, for some
wells, the best choice in artificial lift methods.

In petroleum industry, the most commonly used progressive cavity pump is a single lobe pump that
consists of a single external helical rotor turning eccentrically inside a double internal helical stator.
The rotor and the stator have the same minor diameter and are made of metal (steel). The fits
between the rotor and the stator may be metal to metal, or metal to elastomer which is set inside
the stator. Compression fits are usually used for metal to elastomer contacts, while very small
clearance is left for metal to metal fits. There are chambers between the rotor and the stator, which
are separated by the fits as cavities in 180o apart. The fits work as seals to prevent fluid
communication between adjacent cavities. As the rotor rotates, the seal lines change positions and
form fully enclosed cavities moving continuously from pump inlet to outlet.

These cavities trap fluid at the inlet and carry it along to the outlet, thus providing a non-pulsation
smooth flow. Unlike centrifugal pump, fluid viscosity will not degrade pump head of a PCP, but
increase pumping volumetric efficiency. Since PCP is a positive displacement pump, it doesnt have
gas lock problem theoretically, but due to temperature increase from gas compression, PCP can only
handle high gas slug in a short time. Due to the feature of moving seal lines, scale does not normally
deposit in a PCP. PCPs have relatively low inertia of their rotating parts, and have a reliable working
life.

Although PCPs have been used for a few decades as an artificial lift method in petroleum
engineering, most studies focused on their working mechanism(Gaymard et al., 1988, Saveth and
Klein, 1989, Delpassand, 1997) and pumping behaviors (Gamboa et al., 2003, Bratu, 2005). To
authors knowledge, no paper has discussed the design of PCP wells in production system. Fluid
production from a PCP pumping well is not only determined by the PCP, but also controlled by
reservoir inflow performance, fluid outflow performance and surface condition. This paper fills the
gap by using nodal analysis method to design a PCP.

The design of a PCP pumping well is to determine the rotational speed of the pump to produce the
well at desired liquid rate, or calculate the production rate of the well at a given rotational speed.
System analysis is also helpful in analyzing and improving the pumping efficiencies of existing PCP
wells. Similar to other artificial lift designs, PCP design associates with many factors such as
mechanical efficiency, reservoir temperature, working life, abrasion resistance, elastomer tolerance
and so on. This paper focuses on production rate and rotational speed, as well as the effect of
viscosity.

Basic Correlations

Many authors discussed PCP structure and its working mechanism, such as Gaymard et al. (1988),
Saveth and Klein (1989), and Delpassand (1997). Here is a summary of a PCPs basic equations.

A PCP rotor is a single external helical gear. Its cross section is a circle with the diameter of d at any
place as shown in Fig. 1. The centers of all the cross sections are on a helical line which has an
eccentricity, e, with the rotor's axis. A stator is a double internal helical gear, and has the same
minor diameter as the rotor. The stator has twice pitch length as that of the rotor. Generally, one
and a half stator pitches are called a stage in a PCP.

A stator's cross section at any place is a long circle and can be described as two half circles of
diameters d departed a distance of 4e as shown in Fig. 2. The stator has the same cross-sectional
shapes along it axis but with different angles. The cross-sectional areas of the rotor and the stator
are

After setting a rotor in a stator, the rotor axis is not coincidence with stator center line. In addition to
rotating around its axis, the rotor rotates eccentrically around the stator center line with the same
eccentricity of e. The cross-sectional area at any place of a PCP reduces to a rectangle with width d
and length 4e as shown in Fig. 3

The rotor divides stator chamber into two crescent sections at any place. The two sections belong to
two cavities and their areas change with the rotation of the rotor. The two cavities are apart 180o,
and work alternatively as a suction container and a discharger. The total area of the two sections is
constant at any place along the pump, and it is the fluid flow area.

The length of a cavity is the pitch length of the stator, Ps. The 180obdeparted two cavities move one
pitch when the rotor turns 360o. Therefore, a PCP will move fluid of 4edPs per rotation. For a
rotational speed n, the cavity moving speed along stator center line is

When pumping fluid, the fluid velocity through a PCP depends on its stator pitch length and
rotational speed. The higher the rotor rotational speed is, the faster the fluid travels along pumps
center line. Since the cross-sectional area for fluid flow is constant at any place, the flow rate in a
PCP is

The correlation implies that the cavity fluid is displaced completely. The rate qt is the theoretical
rate of the pump at the rotational speed n. However, internal leakage from outlet to inlet is always
there whenever a differential pressure applies. This is because that the seals have small clearances
for metal to metal fits or the seals are pushed apart by the pressures in cavities for metal to
elastomer. The leakage, also called slip, depends upon pump type, the clearance between rotor and
stator, fluid viscosity, and differential pressure. Pump size also affects slip. Larger pump has longer
clearance length and thus has larger slip.

Taking into account the slip rate, qs, the actual discharge rate of a PCP, qa, is,

Volumetric efficiency of a PCP is defined as the ratio of the actual rate to the theoretical rate. The
higher the slip is, the lower the volumetric efficiency. The efficiency of one hundred percent
represents no slip.

Basic PCP Design

As show in Eq. 4, the theoretical flow rate varies with pump, and is proportional to pump rotational
speed. For a higher production rate, selecting a large size pump will avoid high rotational speed. Also
noted is that the rate has nothing to do with stage number or pump length. Unlike for an electric
submersible pump, selecting a PCP with more stages will not increase production rate.
More stages represent more seals and longer length. If each seal takes the same differential
pressure, a PCP with longer length or more stages can take higher total differential pressure. When a
high lift head is needed, a pump with more stages should be selected.

The same as other displacement pumps, a PCP is not a pressure generator. PCP just takes the
environmental pressure at discharge place as its discharging pressure theoretically. Therefore, for a
given production rate and wellhead pressure, longer PCP may just reduce slip rate but will not
generate a high discharge pressure. For a low slip pump, adding stages will not benefit production,
but cause low mechanical efficiency.

In short, to get a higher production rate, one can use a larger pump or make a pump rotate faster.
To overcome higher differential pressure, one can use longer pump or add more stages to a pump.

Eq. 4 gives the basic design correlation. The term 4edPs is the theoretical volume or nominal
displacement per rotor revolution. It represents a pumps volumetric capacity. If all the parameters
are known, the theoretical rate can be calculated easily. Normally, PCP manufacturers provide the
theoretical displacement directly. If Qt is the theoretical displacement per revolution, Qt=4edPs.

Substituting Qt into Eq. 4 and solving for the pump speed give the correlation of flow rate and
rotational speed. For PCP design, replacing the theoretical rate, qt, by the total fluid rate at the
pump intake, qtl, yields the correlation to calculate the required rotational speed from total flow
rate.

The theoretical displacement tells the pumps volumetric capacity, and larger pump has larger Qt.
For US field units, the Qt is in B/D/RPM, the flow rate qtl is in B/D, and the rotational speed n is in
RPM.

The production rate, qtl, in the equation is the total fluid (the sum of liquid and gas) rate flowing into
a PCP at pump intake condition, which excludes the gas separated and vented through the annular
of tubing and casing. The in-situ fluid rate can be calculated from desired production liquid rate, qd,
formation volume factor at pump intake, and in-situ free gas amount into the pump.

The design of PCP speed is to find a speed to produce the well at a given desired liquid rate. The
desired liquid rate is the rate at standard condition, STB/D. Many engineers like to use it directly in
Eq. 7 to replace the total fluid rate at pump intake. This is correct when pumping water. For most oil
well production, the formation volume factor at pump intake is greater than one. Therefore, using
desired liquid rate as the total fluid rate at pump intake will underestimate the rotational speed. For
a well with very low gas oil ratio, using the desired liquid rate will give similar results.

For a given rotational speed, the production rate can be calculated by rearranging Eq. 7,

Again, the calculated rate is the in-situ rate at pump intake. It can be converted to the desired liquid
rate at surface by calculating in-situ formation volume factor and free gas fraction.

In addition to PCPs theoretical displacement rate, pump lifting capacity is also a major parameter
for PCP design and selection. The lifting capacity is generally a head and gives the maximum head
limit of the pump. When design a PCP pump, calculated total dynamic head should be lower than
the lifting capacity.
Many manufacturers use theoretical displacement and lift capacity to name their pumps, like
60ABC200. The first number (60) represents one percent of the pumps lifting capacity, ABC is the
pump type, and the last number (200) is the theoretical displacement rate at the speed of 100 RPM.
The two parameters are generally measured at laboratory condition with pure water.

For instance, a PCP has a name of 60ABC200 in field units. The number 60 tells the pump has 6000
(60 * 100) feet of water lifting capacity. And the 200 tells the pump has a theoretical displacement
rate of 200 B/D at 100 RPM (200B/D/100RPM)

The design of a PCP pump is simple when using the desired liquid rate directly. For example, for a
desired liquid rate of 600 STB/D and using the pump 60ABC200, the required rotational speed is 600
STB/D / (200 B/D/100 RPM) = 300 RPM. If one wants the production rate at 500 RPM, the
production rate is 500 RPM * 200 B/D/100 RPM = 1000 B/D.

As shown in Eq. 5, the basic PCP design ignores volumetric slip rate, therefore is only correct for
pumping water, and may also be used in the situations of no or very low slip pumpings, or small
differential pressure. In most cases, in petroleum production, it is only an approximation and
accurate calculation should take into account the effect of slip.

Rotational Speed Design

Substituting the given theoretical rate, Qt, into Eq. 5 yields

The slip, qs, varies with the structure of a PCP and the differential pressure on it. It doesn't change
with pump rotational speed. Usually, the slip of a PCP comes from extensive test data provided by
PCP manufacturers.

Fig. 4 is a typical graph of the flow capacity of a PCP versus lift capacity from manufacturers. It is
generally called catalog performance of a PCP. The horizontal axis is the head across the pump. It
represents the differential pressure by taking away the effect of fluid gravity. The ideal non-slip line
(horizontal dash line) is added in Fig. 4 to describe the slip. The slip is the difference between the
non-slip line and the performance curve. As shown in Fig. 4, the slip increases with increasing
differential pressure.

From Fig. 4, at zero head, the slip is zero and the actual flow rate equals the theoretical rate at the
rotational speed. Thus, Eq. 9 reduces to Eq. 8 at this point.

Performance curves depend on pump rotational speed. The performance curves at different speeds
are parallel to each other. To get the performance curve at a given rotational speed, one may use
the point at zero head (zero differential pressure) to determine the position of the performance
curve at the new speed. For instance, if the catalog performance curve is at the speed of n0(usually
100 RPM) and its flow capacity is Qt at zero head, the performance curve at the speed of n1 is
parallel to the catalog curve witha flow capacity of Qt n1/ n0 at zero head.

During the design of a PCP well, Eq. 9 needs to be solved iteratively. As shown in Eq. 9, the actual
production rate depends on the slip, the slip is a function of differential pressure across the PCP, and
the differential pressure is determined by the actual production rate. Fig. 5 is a typical pressure
profile of a pumping well at a production rate.
As shown in Fig. 5, the pressure profile consists of the pressures at well perforation place (pwf), at
pump intake (pi), at pump discharge (pd) and at well surface (pwh). The differential pressure across
a PCP is the pressure difference of points B and A. For different production rate, the profile and
differential pressure are different.

The pressure curve in Fig. 5 can be determined before selecting a PCP for a desired production rate.
Therefore, the design of a pumping well is to find a proper pump to satisfy the required differential
pressure. The method is also the basis of all artificial life design.

To obtain the pressure profile curve before selecting a pump, nodal analysis method should be used.
The node is set at the pump setting depth. The inflow to the node is from reservoir to well bottom
hole, and then from bottom hole to the pump intake. The calculation direction is from reservoir to
pump intake. The outflow of the node is from the pump discharge to wellhead. The calculation
direction is from well head down to the pump discharge.

As illustrated in Fig. 5, for a desired production rate (liquid rate at standard condition), qd, one can
get the flowing bottom hole pressure, pwf, from the inflow performance relationship of the
reservoir. Then from the pressure pwf and temperature (reservoir temperature) at the bottom hole,
one can calculate the pressure and temperature at any place from bottom hole to the pump intake
by using multiphase flow correlations. The fluid properties, such as water cut, gas oil ratio, bubble
point pressure, the densities of the oil, gas, and water, are known variables for the calculation. In
addition to the pressure and temperature, in-situ fluid density, liquid rate, and free gas rate are also
calculated. Many commercial programs can provide the calculation.

The outflow performance curve in Fig.5 is calculated from wellhead (known pressure and
temperature) down to the pump discharge by using multiphase flow correlation. The pressures,
temperatures, fluid rates (liquid and gas) and fluid densities along the well are calculated. It should
be noted that the fluid properties may be different from those of upstream fluid below pump intake
since some gas may be separated and vented through the annular of tubing and casing.

Once the differential pressure across the PCP has been determined, one can convert it to head by
dividing it by the average fluid density between pump intake and pump discharge. The calculated
head and the total fluid rate at pump intake are used to design the rotational speed of the PCP.

The graphical method to design the rotational speed of a selected PCP is shown in Fig. 6. Draw a
vertical line from the calculated head, Ha, on the horizontal (lift) axis, draw a horizontal line from the
total fluid rate (liquid + gas into pump), qa, on the vertical (flow) axis, then find the intersection of
the two lines, point A. Move the performance curve at speed 100 RPM up or down vertically until it
matches the point A. Find the theoretical rate, Qtn, from the new curve at zero differential pressure.
The solution speed of the pump is

Another method is using the slip from the catalog performance curve. Since PCP slip doesn't vary
with pump speed, one may use it directly to calculate the design speed

Fig. 6 shows the method graphically. The slip at head Ha is qs from the catalog performance curve.
The slip at any speed is the same qs. Therefore Qtn=qa+ qs.
A computer program can be used to design the rotational speed. The catalog performance curve can
be expressed by a polynomial correlation as

where C0 to C5 are polynomial coefficients. The theoretical rate Qt of the PCP equals the first
coefficient C0.

The slip at any head H is,

Production Rate Design

The above design is to determine PCP rotational speed at a desired liquid rate. For a given rotational
speed, the design of a PCP well is to calculate the production rate. The production rate depends on
many factors that need to be determined through well system analysis. The method of calculating
production rate also is helpful in analyzing an existing PCP well.

Eq. 9 is the correlation to calculate the total flow rate at pump intake. Once the total rate is
obtained, production liquid rate at surface can be calculated from the formation volume factor and
free gas fraction at pump intake. The slip rate in Eq. 9 is the key factor to calculate the production
rate. The basic PCP design as discussed above neglects the volumetric slip due to the complexity of
solving the value. To solve Eq. 9, iteration is required since the slip depends on the production rate
indirectly.

The algorithm to solve total fluid flow rate from Eq. 9 is as follows.

1. Assume the initial slip qs (1) as zero.

2. Use Eq. 9 to calculate the total flow rate qa (1) at the PCP's intake for a given rotational
speed n and theoretical flow rate Qt at 100 RPM.
3. Use the calculated total flow rate qa (1) to calculate the inflow from reservoir to the pump
intake and the outflow from wellhead to pump discharge. The outflow is in the annular
between sucker rods and tubing for wellhead driving or in tubing for bottom driving. The
flow rate for the inflow is the sum of the qa(1) and the separated gas at pump intake.
4. Obtain the differential pressure across the pump from the calculated inflow and outflow
pressure profile, and change the differential pressure to head H(1) by using the average fluid
density through the pump.
5. Check the required head H(1) with the lift capacity of the pump. If the head is greater than
the lift capacity, stop the calculation. A longer PCP should be selected and start from step
one. Otherwise,
6. Calculate the volumetric slip rate qs (2) at the head H(1) from pump performance curves.
7. Use the slip qs (2) and repeat the process from step two until the difference of qs(n)-qs(n-1)
is less than an acceptable value.

The design of production rate at a given rotational speed can also be done by using the following
procedures. First of all, use the pump depth as a node and then calculate the inflow and outflow
curves for the node as shown in Fig. 7. The inflow and outflow curves are calculated as follows.

Assume a series of surface liquid flow rates (in STB/D), and calculate their corresponding pressures
at pump intake from reservoir inflow performance relationship and multiphase flow correlations.
Construct the inflow curve using the liquid flow rates and calculated pump intake pressures. From
wellhead pressure and temperature, calculate the pressures at pump discharge for a given surface
liquid rates and construct the outflow curve. The vented free gas needs to be taken away from the
fluid stream for the outflow calculation.

The inflow and outflow curves can be used to construct a well system curve at the pump depth. As
shown in Fig. 7, for any flow rate qi, the corresponding differential pressure is pi. Select a series of
flow rates, calculate their corresponding differential pressures and change the differential pressures
to heads by using corresponding average fluid densities. Calculate the corresponding total flow rates
at pump intake. Draw a curve of the heads versus the total flow rates to obtain the well system
curve as shown in Fig. 8.

The well system curve gives the required head for a given total flow rate at pump intake. Also
plotted in Fig. 8 are the pump catalog performance curves from Fig. 4. The intersections of the pump
performance curves and the well system curve are the production rates at the rotational speeds.

As shown in Fig. 8, for a given speed n, calculate qtl from Eq. 8, where Qt is the rate at zero head for
the catalog performance curve. Shift the catalog curve (100 RPM) horizontally from Qt to qtl and the
new curve is the pump performance curve at the rotational speed n. The intersection of the pump
performance curve at speed n and the well system curve is the solution point S. The solution rate qa
is the total production rate at the pump intake and the corresponding solution head Ha is the head
across the pump at the solution production rate. Ha should be checked against the lift capacity of
the pump.

The solution liquid rate at surface and the differential pressure across the pump can be calculated
from the solution qa and Ha by using the pumping fluid properties.

Viscosity Effect

Viscosity Effect on Slip. The above designs do not include the effect of fluid viscosity. The pump
performance curves provided by manufacturers are test data from pure water. Comparing with
other artificial lift methods, a PCP can pump high viscous fluids, such as bitumen, efficiently. As
stated previously, slip rate is controlled by pump type, pump size, the clearance between the rotor
and stator, differential pressure, and fluid viscosity.

The relationship of viscosity with slippage is generally determined from test data. A general model to
calculate the slips of all types of PCPs are still in research. Gamboa et al. (2003) tried to set up a
general model. As the authors pointed out that their model failed to match the performances of
pumping water, as well as for PCPs with polymer stator. They suggested future researches on the
friction factor inside PCPs and the calculation of the gap area between rotor and stator.

For a given pump and differential pressure, the higher the viscosity of pumped fluid is, the lower the
slip rate. This is due to the resistance to flow for a viscous fluid. Viscosity increases the difficulty of
flowing. Therefore, pumping viscous fluid has higher volumetric efficiency than pumping water.

Due to the difficulty to set up a general slip model for all PCPs, we suggest using pump catalog
performance curves and correcting the viscosity effect on them. The pump performance curve is test
result for each pump by manufacturers, and reflects the effects on the volumetric slip of differential
pressure, pump type, pump size, fits, and rotor and stator materials.
Empirically, slip varies inversely with some power of fluid viscosity. For a range of 100 SSU (Saybolt
Seconds Universal) to 10,000 SSU fluids, the slip varies inversely with the square root of fluid
viscosity (Karassik et al., 2001). One may use the following equation to estimate the effect of
viscosity on volumetric slip.

Where qs-1 and qs-2, B/D, are the volumetric slips of fluids with viscosities 1 and 2. Using water
as one fluid and well fluid as another in Eq. 14, one can get the pump performance curve for the
viscous fluid from catalog pump performance curve. For water, viscosity is about 32 SSU, the slip of a
viscous fluid in a PCP can be calculated as

Where qs is the volumetric slip of pumping water, and can be calculated from the catalog pump
performance curve. qs- is the slip of a viscous fluid with viscosity . Use Eq. 15 for the same PCP at
the same differential pressure. For a viscous fluid, Eq. 9 becomes

Fluid viscosity varies with fluid pressure and temperature, and is especially sensitive to temperature.
It also depends on fluid shear rate for non-Newtonian fluids. The shear rate in a PCP is controlled by
pump rotational speed.

The previous discussed design methods for solving production rate and rotational speed of a PCP can
be used for pumping viscous fluid by using corrected pump performance curve. The correcting
procedure is,

1. From the catalog performance curve of a PCP, obtain its theoretical capacity Qt at zero head.

2. For a series of given heads, H(1), H(2), and H(i), obtain their corresponding flow rates q(1), q(2),
and q(i)) from the performance curve.

3. Calculate the volumetric slips of water by qs(i) = Qt q(i) at any head H(i).

4. Calculate in-situ fluid viscosity of the pumping fluid, .

5. Calculate the corrected slip rates qs-(i) for the pumping fluid using Eq. 15.

6. Calculate corrected flow rates, qc(i), from qc(i)=Qt qs-(i).

7. Construct the corrected performance curve by points of H(i) and qc(i).

The corrected catalog performance curve starts from the same point of Qt as standard catalog curve.
Viscosity reduces fluid slippage, so most production fluids have lower slip rates than that in standard
catalog curve.

Cavity Filling. As the rotor of a PCP rotates, a cavity opens and well fluid enters the cavity. Until the
rotor closes the cavity and pushes the fluid, the pump does not do any work to the fluid. The rotor
rotation just creates the void for entrance. The fluid is not pulled into the void by the PCP, but is
pushed intoby the pressure at the pump intake. For tubing production, the pump intake pressure is
determined by annular fluid level and casing pressure.

Pump volumetric efficiency will drop if the cavity is partial filled. To ensure quiet and efficient
operation, the cavity should be filled completely with the well fluid before rotor closes the cavity. In
practice, experience is used to ensure the complete fillage, such as the fluid level above pump
should be in the range of 50 ft -100 ft to avoid partial filling problem.

Fluid flow into a cavity depends on the fluid viscosity, the size and shape of the opening and the
pressure at the pump intake. High viscosity fluid will not flow easily into the cavity. The more viscous
the liquid is, the greater the resistance to the flow, and therefore the slower the fluid to fill the
cavity. Generally, a PCP rotor turns at a speed of a few hundreds. For viscous fluids, the fluid may do
not have enough time to fill the cavity before it is closed.

To model the fluid flow into a cavity is rather complex due to the irregular shape of the cavity. By
unfolding the cavity, using average cross-sectional area, and using a slot flow model, simplified
models to calculate the critical pump intake pressures are presented in Appendix A for Newtonian
and non-Newtonian fluids. For example for Newtonian fluid, the correlation is

Where d, in, is the diameter of the rotor, ls, in., is the spiral length of a cavity in one stator pitch, and
t, in., is the average thickness of the cavity. Pin, psi, is critical pump intake pressure, n, RPM, is the
pump rotational speed, Qt and qs-u are in B/D.

The correlations to calculate

Eq. 17 gives the critical pump intake pressure, below which the cavity couldn't be completely filled.
The critical fluid level above the pump can then be calculated from the critical pump intake pressure,
casing pressure, pump depth, net zero flow correlation.

For a PCP well, there is a rotational speed at which the fluid just completely fills the cavity. This is the
critical speed for the viscous fluid at the pump intake pressure. Rearranging Eq. 17 yields

Once the design speed is calculated from the design method discussed previously, Eq. 19 can be
used to judge the design rotational speed. If the design speed is less than the critical speed, the
pump is partially filled and its volumetric efficiency will be low.

One way to increase the critical speed is to increase the pump intake pressure by lower pump depth.
This is especially useful for high viscous fluids. Decreasing rotational speed is another way to fill the
cavity completely. From Eq. 16, decreasing speed yields a lower production rate. From reservoir
inflow performance, lower production rate gives higher flowing bottomhole pressure and therefore
increases the pump intake pressure.

Conclusions

Algorithms and procedures to design pump rotational speed and production rate from well inflow
and outflow performances are presented in this paper. The presented algorithms can be used in the
design of a PCP well, as well as in analyzing the performance of existing PCP pumping wells.

Also proposed in the paper is a method to account for the effect of viscosity on pump volumetric
slip. Unlike traditional methods of trying to set up a general correlation for all PCP types, this paper
proposes a simplified model to correct the effect of viscosity on each pumps catalog performance
curve. The corrected performance curve can then be used in the design and analysis of pumping
viscous fluids.
By unfolding the cavity, using average cross-sectional area, and using a slot flow model, simplified
models to calculate the critical pump intake pressures are developed for both Newtonian and non-
Newtonian fluids.

Nomenclature

A rotor = rotor cross-sectional area, in.2

A stator = stator cross-sectional area, in.2

Af = fluid flow area at any place, in.2

C1,C2, ... C5 = coefficients of performance curve

d = rotor minor diameter, in.

Ev = volumetric efficiency, dimensionless

e = eccentricity, in.

H = head, ft

ls = cavity spiral length, in

n = rotational speed, RPM

Ps= stator pitch length, in.

pi,pd = pump intake and discharge pressures, psi

pwf, pwh = flow bottom hole and well head pressures, psi

Qt = theoretical displacement per one revolution, B/D/RPM

Qa = actual flow rate, in3/min., B/D

qd = desired liquid rate, STB/D

qt= theoretical displacement rate at any rotational speed, in3/min.

qtl= total flow rate at pump intake, B/D

qs= volumetric slip rate for water, in3/min., B/D

qs-u = volumetric slip rate of viscous fluid, B/D

t= cavity average thickness, in.

v= axial flow velocity, in./min.

= fluid viscosity, SSU

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank IHS for permission to publish this paper.

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Singapore, 2-5 February, 1988.

6. Karassik, I. J., Messina, J. P., Cooper, P., Heald, C. C., 1991, Pump Handbook, Third Edition,
McGraw-Hill.p.p 3.115