CFD modeling of high inertia asphaltene aggregates deposition in 3D turbulent oil production wells

As a high pressure crude oil flows in production well, due to pressure drop, asphaltenes precipitate and eventually deposit on the tubing wall. In this work the flow of crude oil with high inertia asphaltene aggregates deposition phenomenon was simulated by Eulerian-Lagrangian method using 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tool. The k-omega model was used to simulate the fully developed turbulent flow of crude oil in the well column. Due to the lack of experimental data for high inertia asphaltene aggregates deposition in turbulent pipe flow, the modeling results were validated with the available aerosol data. The results showed that the k-omega turbulent model can precisely predict the high inertia asphaltene particles deposition phenomenon. The effects of oil velocity, surface roughness and asphaltene concentration on deposition velocity were investigated. The modeling results indicated that asphaltene deposition velocity was independent of surface roughness and particles number in the crude oil. In contrast, the deposition velocity increased significantly with oil flow velocity. The results also showed that increasing of oil velocity leads to decrease asphaltene deposition flux. Finally, a slight change inwell cross-section area due to asphaltene deposition was observed.