Numerical investigation on ball-sealers transport and diversion performance in shale gas horizontal well based on semi-resolved CFD-DEM

In the staged multi-cluster fracturing of shale gas horizontal wells, ball sealers are used to ensure uniform fluid distribution among clusters, a strategy that is both cost-effective and operationally beneficial. Despite these advantages, comprehending the ball sealers' dynamics within the wellbore and their plugging behavior at perforations is still challenging. This complexity results in prediction difficulties regarding their diversion efficiency. To address this, our study utilized a semi-resolved CFD-DEM model based on kernel approximation to simulate the behavior of medium-sized ball sealers in single and multiple cluster scenarios. Our findings from a single cluster scenario reveal that the plugging probability is co-determined by velocity gradients in the fluid ingestion area near the perforation, backflow region, and inertial forces of the ball sealers. As the critical flow rate is achieved, the plugging probability negatively correlated with fluid viscosity and displacement, and positively correlated with the perforation flow ratio (PFR), the difference in particle-fluid density, ball sealer’s diameter, and the ball sealer’s offset from the pipeline center. Temporary plugging control efficiency was used to evaluate the flow balance effect among multiple clusters. The results indicate that an increased number of ball sealers enhances the fault tolerance during the temporary plugging process. Nevertheless, excessive ball sealers might undermine the temporary plugging control efficiency, as perforations with lower fluid inflow rates are unexpectedly plugging. Higher differences in fluid injection rates between clusters led to increased efficiency in temporary plugging control. Premature deployment of ball sealers cannot effectively plug perforations with marginally higher fluid inflow rates, but instead accidently plug intermediate clusters with lower fluid inflow rates. These findings offer a theoretical basis for optimizing the design of ball sealers.

Study on a semi-resolved CFD-DEM method for rod-like particles in a gas-solid fluidized bed

Based on a semi-resolved CFD-DEM coupling method,this study proposed a method that uses the minimum distance between the fluid grid and the particle boundary as a reference value to determine the degree of influence of the target fluid grid on the particle's drag force.A fluidized bed of rod-like particles was chosen as a typical case to investigate the effect of different fluid grid scales on various fluidized bed characteristic parameters.The calculation performance of the semi-resolved and unre-solved CFD-DEM coupling algorithm on key fluidized bed characteristic parameters such as average pressure drop,particle frequency distribution with bed height,and particle orientation distribution were compared.It was found that the semi-resolved CFD-DEM coupling algorithm gradually obtained results with higher consistency with decreasing fluid grid scale for key parameters such as particle frequency distribution with bed height,particle orientation distribution,and time-history mixing index,exhibiting a phenomenon similar to grid independence in fluid simulation.By comparing with experimental results,it was verified that the semi-resolved CFD-DEM coupling algorithm can be applied to simulate multi-granular gas-solid systems with fluid grid scales equivalent to particle scales.This algorithm solves the limitation of fluid grid scale in the unresolved CFD-DEM coupling framework and improves the grid adaptability of the CFD-DEM coupling simulation algorithm.