Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 173 (2019) 339–350

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Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/petrol

A numerical study on flow patterns inside an electrical submersible pump T

(ESP) and comparison with visualization experiments
Jianjun Zhu∗, Haiwen Zhu∗∗, Jiecheng Zhang, Hong-Quan Zhang
McDougall School of Petroleum Engineering, The University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK, 74104, USA

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This paper presents a numerical study of flow pattern recognition inside the rotating impeller of an electrical
Electrical submersible pump submersible pump (ESP) using the transient multiphase Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. The
Multiphase flow calculation domain is constructed based on the previous experimental facility for visualizing flow patterns in an
Flow pattern ESP (Barrios (2007)). The high-quality structured mesh comprising hexahedral grids is generated using multi-
Eulerian-Eulerian
block technique in ANSYS ICEM. For CFD simulations, the realizable k-ε turbulence model with volume of fluid
VOF
(VOF) and Eulerian-Eulerian multiphase models is successfully implemented in ANSYS Fluent solver. The sliding
mesh technique is applied to interfaces where rotating and stationary parts interact. By incorporating the same
boundary conditions as Barrios experimental study, three flow cases with constant gas flow rates and varying
liquid flow rates are selected to conduct numerical simulations. The comparison of simulation results with
Barrios’ observations shows that the Eulerian-Eulerian multiphase model is superior to VOF model for simulating
gas-liquid two-phase flow in a rotating ESP. The single-phase simulation results match catalog curves, which
validates the numerical methodology. For two-phase simulations, the simulated flow patterns using Eulerian-
Eulerian model agree well with visualization experiments. Different flow patterns prevailing inside the rotating
ESP impeller are captured. At low gas flow rate, bubbles are dispersed in liquid phase, and the flow pattern is
categorized as dispersed bubble flow. As gas flow rate increases, bubbles can accumulate and coalesce, causing
large gas-pocket formation leading to intermittent/slug flow. Transient multiphase CFD simulation is an efficient
and reliable tool to predict flow patterns inside ESPs.

1. Introduction
Electrical submersible pumps (ESPs) are widely used in petroleum
industry. Especially for subsea production wells, high flow rates of
hydrocarbon fluids are frequently encountered (Zhu and Zhang, 2018;
Zhu et al., 2017, 2018). As an efficient downhole equipment for con-
verting kinetic energy to hydraulic pressure head, the compact multi-
stage assembly in ESPs can satisfy offshore production needs. However,
ESPs must be operated within a narrow operation window. The hy-
draulic performance suffers from severe degradation as the downhole
free gas entrainment increases (Takacs, 2009), resulting in pump in-
stable operations and reduction of boosting pressure or production
rates. The gas entrainment may further trigger pressure surging and gas
locking in ESPs, which are detrimental to pumps’ functionalities and in
turn jeopardize the entire production system. Surging may cause ESP
vibrations and short field run-life (Zhou and Sachdeva, 2010), while the
gas pockets reduces the production rates of hydrocarbon fluids severely
(Russell and Marsis, 2013; Shi et al., 2018). High vibrational stress and
unexpected operation conditions can even lead to serious damage to
pumping devices (Neumann et al., 2016; Schäfer et al., 2017).
ESPs are categorized as centrifugal pumps, which are designed for
efficiently transporting single-phase fluid. Inevitably, the presence of
gas inside ESP causes head and liquid flow rate degradation (Shao et al.,
2018). In recent years, with more and more installations of ESPs in oil
production systems, the effects of gas entrainment on ESP's pressure
boosting ability have been a focal research area (Zhu, 2017). The pio-
neering experimental studies on two-phase flow in a rotating cen-
trifugal pump were conducted by Murakami and Minemura, 1974a,
1974b. By employing a semi-opened impeller pump with a transparent
casing, they observed the behaviors of entrained air bubbles. The de-
creasing total head of the pump caused by air admission and the work
consumed for air delivery were reported. Since then, experimental in-
vestigations (Cirilo, 1998; Romero, 1999; Pessoa, 2001; Beltur, 2003;
Duran, 2003) of gas-liquid flow in centrifugal pumps focus on

∗
Corresponding author.
∗∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: jianjun-zhu@utulsa.edu (J. Zhu), haiwen-zhu@utulsa.edu (H. Zhu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2018.10.038
Received 26 July 2018; Received in revised form 12 October 2018; Accepted 13 October 2018
Available online 16 October 2018
0920-4105/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
J. Zhu et al.
measuring pumps' hydraulic performance in terms of boosting pressure,
efficiency etc., while few studies (Barrios, 2007; Verde et al., 2017;
Perissinotto et al., 2017) are related to characterizing two-phase flow
patterns inside the rotating centrifugal pumps. However, flow pattern
recognition and characterization are of great importance to the me-
chanistic modeling of multiphase flow. Similar to multiphase pipe flow,
flow pattern inside a centrifugal pump varies associated with phase
interaction and interfacial momentum transfer changes, which depends
on fluid properties, flow rates and geometrical parameters (Parsi et al.,
2014). Due to the complicated pump geometry and compact multistage
assembly, the direct observation of flow pattern inside the rotating ESPs
is extremely difficult. Especially, it involves special design of facility
associated with necessary modifications on pump geometries, such as
the removal of impeller hub and attaching the Plexiglas on its top for
visual observations (Barrios, 2007; Verde et al., 2017). Several so-
phisticated instrumentations to enable the non-intrusive visualization
technique, the so-called high resolution computed tomography
(HireCT) to measure the distribution of in-situ gas void fractions ac-
curately, have also been reported (Schäfer et al., 2015).
With the advances of computer technology, computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) becomes a more and more powerful tool to study
centrifugal-pump performance under both single-phase and multiphase
flow conditions as CFD offers an alternative approach to reveal the
complex internal flow structures numerically. The steady CFD codes
with the moving reference frame (MRF) interface model have been
implemented to simulate the single-phase flow in rotating centrifugal
pumps, including velocity and pressure fields (Asuaje et al., 2005;
Maitelli et al., 2010; Rajendran and Purushothaman, 2012), flow re-
circulation and separation (Cheah et al., 2007; Zhu and Zhang, 2016).
The MRF model is considered as steady-state simulation since it holds
the rotating and stationary parts in two separate reference frames. The
transient simulations were conducted by researchers using the sliding-
mesh technique to investigate the unsteady flow structures in cen-
trifugal pumps due to impeller-volute interaction (Gonzalez et al.,
2002), impeller-diffuser interaction (Huang et al., 2010), and high-
viscosity fluid flow (Zhu et al., 2016; Shojaeefard et al., 2012; Ofuchi
et al., 2017).
CFD has also been applied to simulate pump performance with gas
presence, such as cavitation phenomenon (Xu et al., 2017; Tan et al.,
2013), and free-gas entrainment flow (Zhang et al., 2017, 2018; Zhu
and Zhang, 2017). Unlike single-phase simulations, two-phase CFD si-
mulations require the solution of conservation equations of mass, mo-
mentum and energy for the continuous and dispersed phases. Mean-
while, another set of constitutive equations for describing the
interphase interactions needs to be solved simultaneously. Caridad and
Kenyery (2004) and Caridad et al. (2008) numerically studied the ef-
fects of inlet GVFs and bubble sizes on ESP performance with a water/
gas mixture. Barrios et al. (2009) performed multiphase CFD simula-
tions on a single-stage ESP impeller with new models of bubble-size and
drag-coefficient predictions. Their simulations agreed with laboratory
visualization images of streamlines and gas-accumulation zones. Zhu
and Zhang (2014) conducted numerical simulations on a three-stage
ESP model with each stage comprising an impeller and a diffuser. Based
on the comparison with experimental data, their work revealed that
bubble size might be a critical factor affecting ESP performance under
two-phase flow conditions.
Essentially, the multiphase flow phenomena are transient. To better
simulate the hydrodynamics of gas-liquid two-phase flow in a rotating
centrifugal pump, the unsteady CFD simulation codes coupled with
multiphase flow model and sliding mesh algorithm to account for the
interactions between impeller and diffuser should be adopted.
However, the computational cost for transient CFD simulations is far
more than that of steady-state simulations (Zhu and Zhang, 2018; Zhu,
2017). Marsis et al. (2013) performed transient two-phase CFD simu-
lations on eight multi-vane ESP designs. The predicted pump perfor-
mance was confirmed by experimental results. The final design was
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Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 173 (2019) 339–350
achieved with the stage pressure increased by 4% for single-phase flow
and 23% for two-phase flow at inlet GVF = 20% by optimizing the
meridional profile and number of blades. Yu et al., 2013, 2015 con-
ducted unsteady numerical simulation on gas-liquid flow in a multi-
phase centrifugal pump. Considering multiple interfacial momentum
transfer components, including drag force, lift force, virtual mass force
and turbulent dispersion force, they concluded that the two-fluid mul-
tiphase model was able to capture the transport process more accu-
rately than the homogeneous model. Compared to lift force and tur-
bulent dispersion force, the drag force plays a more dominant role.
Pineda et al. (2016) presented an alternative approach to obtain the
distribution of the dispersed phase in a rotating ESP by solving the
realizable k–ɛ turbulence model coupled with the volume of fluid (VOF)
multiphase model. They observed that the numerical results of in-situ
gas void fraction (αG) could be correlated by the Lockhart-Martinelli
parameters. Zhang et al. (2016) compared the unsteady CFD simulation
results of multiphase flow patterns in a three-stage centrifugal pump
with the corresponding visualization experiments. Good agreement on
the positions and shapes of the gas pocket was observed.
Although experimental and numerical studies on gas-liquid two-
phase flow in centrifugal pumps are available in literature, most of
existing works focus on the bulk properties (boosting pressure/head
etc.) of pump performance under gassy flow conditions. The gas-bubble
behavior and its effects on the two-phase flow hydrodynamics in ro-
tating ESPs are still not well understood. Specifically, the flow pattern
recognition and characterization, which are closely related to me-
chanistic modeling of ESP gas/liquid flow performance, are not clearly
studied yet. The interfacial mechanism of phase interaction, slippage
and characteristics of the multiphase transport process have not been
fully clarified either (Suh et al., 2017). For CFD simulations, the direct
validations by comparing numerically simulated flow patterns against
the visual observations in rotating ESPs are very few. As to multiphase
models, such as VOF and Eulerian, the validity and applicability of each
to gas-liquid two-phase flow inside rotating centrifugal pumps should
be verified.
This paper presents an alternative approach for flow pattern pre-
diction in a rotating ESP using transient multiphase CFD simulations
validated by visualization experimental results. Based on Barrios (2007)
prototype for visualizing flow patterns in the second stage of an ESP,
the flow domain for gas-liquid mixture is constructed. By incorporating
the same boundary conditions as experimental studies, three different
cases with fixed gas flow rates and varying liquid flow rates are selected
to perform CFD simulations. The comparison of numerical results
against experimental visualizations shows that the two-fluid Eulerian-
Eulerian model is superior to VOF model in simulating gas-liquid two-
phase flow in ESPs. Meanwhile, the distinct flow patterns prevailing
inside the rotating ESP impeller are captured by CFD simulations, in-
cluding dispersed bubble flow, bubbly flow, and intermittent flow. The
transient multiphase CFD simulation is verified to be an efficient and
reliable tool to predict flow patterns inside ESPs.
2. ESP geometry and prototype
The performance of centrifugal pumps when handling low viscosity
incompressible fluids is closely related to a dimensional variable named
specific speed NS, which is defined as (Stepanoff, 1957):
N q
NS =
H 0.75 (1)
where N, q and H are rotational speed (rpm), flow rate (gpm) and pump
head (ft), respectively. Based on Eq. (1), centrifugal pumps are cate-
gorized into radial, mixed and axial types (Zhu, 2017). The radial
pumps usually fall in the range 500 < NS < 1800, while the mixed
pumps can reach a maximum NS = 4500.
Barrios (2007) designed a two-stage ESP prototype to visually ob-
serve the gas-liquid flow performance inside the rotating ESP impeller,
J. Zhu et al.
Fig. 1. Top views of ESP model, (a) impeller, (b) diffuser.
namely, the head degradation and flow pattern transitions. The studied
ESP is a mixed-flow type centrifugal pump. The best efficiency point
(BEP) is at liquid flow rate QL = 6100 bpd, N = 3600 rpm, stage pres-
sure increment ΔP = 15.9 psi, hydraulic efficiency is η = 0.75. The
specific speed, NS = 3300, and outer nominal diameter of 5.13 inch.
Fig. 1 shows the top views of the impeller (Fig. 1(a)) and diffuser
(Fig. 1(b)) in ESP.
In Barrios’ visualization experiments, the working fluids were water
and nitrogen. An experimental matrix containing variable flow condi-
tions was adopted. The rotational speeds of ESP range from 600 to
1500 rpm, and the inlet gas volumetric fractions, e.g. GVF or λG, are
within 0–5%. Considering computational cost, three cases at rotational
speed N = 900 rpm are selected in this paper to perform counterpart
CFD simulations. Table 1 lists three flow cases with fixed gas flow rates
and different liquid flow rates. The GVFs are calculated based on the
idea gas property for nitrogen.
3. Numerical methodology
In this paper, the realizable k-ε turbulence model with volume of
fluid (VOF) and Eulerian-Eulerian multiphase models is successfully
implemented in ANSYS Fluent solver (v18.2). The sliding mesh tech-
nique is applied to interfaces where the rotating and stationary parts
interact. For this section, the numerical methodologies for computa-
tional domain and mesh, governing equations, numerical scheme and
boundary conditions are discussed in details.
3.1. Mesh generation
As Fig. 1 shows, the ESP geometry is axial-symmetric with seven
blades and eight vanes in impeller and diffuser. It is a common practice
to apply geometric symmetry to simplify the mesh generation. On basis
of periodicity, each flow domain inside the impeller and diffuser of ESP
prototype can be streamwisely sliced into 1/7 and 1/8, respectively.
The high-quality structured 3D mesh comprising hexahedral grids is
generated using multi-block technique in ANSYS ICEM. Then, the
single-channeled mesh of each flow domain can be rotated and dupli-
cated around the shaft direction to generate the complete computa-
tional grids of impeller, diffuser and downstream discharge pipe, as
shown in Fig. 2(a), (b), (c), respectively. During the mesh rotation and
Table 1
CFD simulation cases at N = 900 rpm.
Case QG (scf/h) m˙G (kg/s) QL (bpd) m˙L (kg/s)
3.442 × 10−6
1 0.35 429 0.7869
2 0.35 3.442 × 10−6 265 0.4861
3 0.35 3.442 × 10−6 216 0.3962
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 173 (2019) 339–350
copy, the nodes at two adjacent periodical interfaces are merged to
avoid overlapping and obtain a conformal mesh.
With the mesh of each subdomain, the complete computational
mesh can be assembled, as presented in Fig. 3(a). Fig. 3(b) shows the
overall mesh quality histogram, where the abscissa is the element
quality on a scale from zero (worst) to unity (best), and the ordinate
displays the number of elements in each quality range. As seen, the
mesh quality for all grids is higher than 0.25. The quality check in
Fluent solver reports that the minimum orthogonal quality is 0.14, and
the maximum aspect ratio is 26. Thus, the mesh used in this study meet
the general quality criterion (Fluent, 2017).
3.2. Mathematical model
The paper performs CFD simulations of gas-liquid two-flow in ESP
with two multiphase flow models (VOF and Eulerian) and the same
turbulence model (realizable k-ε) to solve the transient 3D in-
compressible Navier-Stokes (NS) equations. VOF model is an Euler-
Euler approach and implements surface-tracking technique (Fluent,
2017), which applies volume fraction equation to track interfaces. It
requires only a single-set of momentum conservation equation that is
shared by fluids. Eulerian-Eulerian model is also an Euler-Euler ap-
proach. It is the most complex multiphase flow model, which requires N
sets of momentum/continuity equations to be solved numerically. N is
the phase number. The phase coupling is handled through pressure and
interphase exchange terms.
3.2.1. VOF model
For both multiphase models, the continuity equation is given as:
∂ (αq ρq )
+ ∇⋅(αq ρq ⇀
vq ) = 0
∂t (2)
where the subscript q = g or l for gas and liquid. A simple governing
equation holds to calculate the volume fraction α for each phase:
n
∑ αq = 1
q=1 (3)
The difference of VOF model from Eulerian-Eulerian model is the
momentum equation. As discussed above, the single-set momentum
equation is solved in VOF model throughout the computational domain,
where the velocity field is shared among phases. Thus, in VOF model,
the momentum equation takes the following term:
∂ (ρ⇀v) ⇀
λG + ∇⋅(ρ⇀⇀
v v ) = −∇p + ∇⋅[μ (∇⇀ v + ∇⇀ v T )] + ρ⇀g +F
∂t (4)
⇀
0.35% where F is the external force. For fluid flow in centrifugal pump,
0.56% ⇀ ⇀ ⇀ ⇀ ⇀
0.69%
F = FCor + Fcfg . FCor and Fcfg represent the Coriolis force and centrifugal
⇀ ⇀
force effects. In stationary domain, FCor = Fcfg = 0 . In a rotating domain
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Fig. 2. Complete mesh for ESP flow domains, (a) impeller, (b) diffuser, (c) outlet ports.

⇀ ⇀×⇀
with constant angular velocity (ω), FCor = −2ρω v , and ∂ ∂ ∂ ⎛⎛ μt ⎞ ∂ε ⎞ ε2
⇀ (ρε ) + (ρεuj ) = ⎜ μ + ⎟ + ρC1 Sε − ρC2
⇀ × (⇀ ω ×⇀ ω and ⇀
r ) , where ⇀
⎜ ⎟
Fcfg = −ρω r are angular velocity vector and ∂t ∂x j ∂x j ⎝ ⎝ σε ⎠ ∂x j ⎠ k + vε
position vector. The momentum equation is dependent on the volume ε
fractions of all phases through the properties ρ and μ, which are defined + C1ε C3ε Gb
k (10)
as:
where
ρ = αl ρl + αg ρg (5)
η ⎤ k 1 ⎛ ∂uj ∂ui ⎞
C1 = max ⎡0.43, , η=S , S= 2Sij Sij , Sij = ⎜ + ⎟
μ = αl μl + αg μg ⎢
⎣ η + 5 ⎥
⎦ ε 2 ⎝ ∂x i ∂x j ⎠
(6)
In these equations, Gk and Gb represent the generation of turbulent
In order to include the effect of surface tension, the continuum
kinetic energy due to mean velocity gradients and buoyancy. C2, C1ε
surface force (CSF) model proposed by Blackbill et al. (Brackbill et al.,
and C3ε are constants. σk and σε are turbulent Prandtl numbers for k and
1992) is applied to Eq. (4):
ε. The bulk properties, including density and viscosity, are determined
αi ρi κj ∇αj + αj ρj κi ∇αi from the volume-fraction weighted average of the properties of the two
Fvol = ∑ σij 1 fluids. The turbulent viscosity μt is modeled by
pairsij, i < j (ρ
2 i
+ ρj ) (7)
k2
where σij is the surface tension coefficient and κ is the radius curvature μt = ρCμ
ε (11)
between phase i and j. As only liquid and gas are present in ESP,
κi = −κj and ∇αi = −∇αj , Eq. (7) can be reduced to:
3.2.2. Eulerian-Eulerian model
ρκl ∇αl For Eulerian-Eulerian multiphase model, the momentum equation is
Fvol = σgl 1
(ρ + ρg ) (8) changed to
2 l
∂ ⇀
For turbulence model, the realizable k-ε is used in this study, since it (αq ρq ⇀
vq ) + ∇⋅(αq ρq ⇀⇀
vq vq ) = −αq ∇p + ∇⋅τ¯q + αq ρq⇀g + FD
∂t
satisfies mathematical constraints on the Reynolds stresses, which are ⇀
consistent with the physics of turbulent flows (Shih et al., 1995). The + Fvm, lift , wl, td, q (12)
transport equations for turbulent kinetic energy (k) and dissipation rate →
where τ̄¯q is the qth phase stress-strain tensor given by Eq. (13) below. g
(ε) are modeled as: → →
is the gravity acceleration vector. FD is the drag force, and Fvm, lift , wl, td, q
∂ ∂ ∂ ⎛⎛ μt ⎞ ∂k ⎞ represents the interfacial forces for the interfacial momentum transfer,
(ρk ) + (ρkuj ) = ⎜ μ + ⎜⎟ + Gk + Gb − ρε
⎟
including external body force, virtual mass force, lift force, turbulence
∂t ∂x j ∂x j ⎝ ⎝ σk ⎠ ∂x j ⎠ (9)
dispersion force etc. A magnitude analysis regarding the relative

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J. Zhu et al. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 173 (2019) 339–350

Fig. 3. The complete computational grids for ESP prototype, (a) assembled mesh, (b) mesh quality histogram.

importance of these forces in centrifugal pumps conducted by Yu et al. ρq db →

ug − →
ul
(2015) indicates that the drag force and virtual mass force play the Re =
μq (17)
dominant roles.

2 The virtual mass force occurs when a secondary phase p accelerates

τ¯q = αq μq (∇→
uq + (∇→
uq) ) + αq ⎛λq − μq ⎞ ∇⋅→
T
uq I¯ relative to the primary phase q. The inertia of the primary-phase mass
⎝ 3 ⎠ (13)
encountered by the accelerating bubbles exerts a virtual mass force on
In Eulerian-Eulerian model, the mixture turbulence model is used in the particles or bubbles (Fluent, 2017). The virtual mass force is defined
this study. All phases can be considered as a single mixture. The as:
transport equations of k and ε in Eulerian-Eulerian multiphase model
⇀ D⇀
vq D⇀
vp ⎞
are the same as VOF model, except that the mixture velocity uj should Fvm = Cvm αp ρq ⎜⎛ − ⎟
be calculated from ⎝ Dt Dt ⎠ (18)
N
∑1 αi ρi uj where Cvm is the virtual mass coefficient. Typically, Cvm = 0.5. The
uj = N
→
∑1 αi ρi (14) virtual mass force Fvm will be added to the right-hand side of the mo-
→ →
mentum equation for both phases (Fvm, q = −Fvm, p ).
In gas-liquid two-phase flow, the drag force represents interfacial In this study, high shearing effect is resulted from the rotation of
momentum transfer due to velocity slippage between gas and liquid ESP impellers. The gas phase is treated as bubbly flow with all bubbles
phases, which is given as of the same spherical shapes and sizes. The Barrios bubble size pre-
⇀ 3 ρ αg diction model (Barrios, 2007) is adopted here to calculate the re-
FD = CD l →ug − →
ul (→
ug − →
ul ) presentative bubble diameter, which is given as:
4 db (15)
3/5
where CD is the drag coefficient. To calculate CD, the Schiller-Naumann σ 1
db = 0.0348Ω0.8809λ1/4 ⎛⎜ ⎞⎟
(Schiller and Naumann, 1935) model covering a wide range of Reynolds ⎝ ρl ⎠ (Ω3r12)2/5 (19)
number is used:
where Ω is the rotational speed, λ is the gas volumetric fraction at ESP
0.687 )
⎧ 24(1 + 0.15 Re Re≤1000 inlet, r1 is the impeller diameter, σ is the surface tension. Fig. 4 shows
CD = Re
⎨ 0.44 Re > 1000 the predictions of Barrios bubble size model versus inlet GVF. The re-
⎩ (16)
presentative bubble diameters for three different flow cases in-
where the Reynolds number Re is given by: corporated in the CFD simulations are annotated as well.

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J. Zhu et al. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 173 (2019) 339–350

Table 3
VOF model parameters and solution methods.
Parameter Method

Formulation Implicit
Volume fraction cutoff 1e-6
Body force formulation Implicit
Interface modeling type Sharp
Number of phases 2
Surface tension model Continuum surface force
Pressure-velocity coupling Coupled
Gradient spatial discretization Least Squares Cell
Pressure spatial discretization PRESTO!
Momentum spatial discretization Second Order Upwind
Volume fraction spatial discretization Modified HRIC
Turbulent kinetic energy spatial discretization Second Order Upwind
Turbulent dissipation rate spatial discretization First Order Upwind
Transient formulation First Order Upwind
Time step 0.0005 s

Fig. 4. Representative bubble diameter in rotating ESP.

Table 4
Eulerian-Eulerian model parameters and solution methods.
3.3. Numerical scheme and boundary conditions
Parameter Method

The complete computational mesh comprises the first stage impeller Formulation Implicit
and diffuser, second stage impeller as well as the downstream discharge Number of Eulerian phases 2
section. For transient simulation in ANSYS Fluent, the interactions of Pressure-velocity coupling Coupled
Gradient spatial discretization Least Squares Cell
rotating parts and stationary parts are achieved by sliding mesh tech-
Momentum spatial discretization Second Order Upwind
nique at the domain interfaces. Volume fraction spatial discretization First Order Upwind
For both single-phase and gas-liquid two-phase CFD simulations, the Turbulent kinetic energy spatial discretization First Order Upwind
boundary conditions are specified according to Barrios’ experimental Turbulent dissipation rate spatial discretization First Order Upwind
study (Barrios, 2007). The working fluids are water and nitrogen, Transient formulation First Order Upwind
Time step 0.0001–0.0005 s
whose properties are calculated based on the idea gas formula. The
constant mass flow rate with medium turbulence intensity for each
phase is applied at the flow domain inlet, while a total pressure is
imposed at the domain outlet. The smooth wall assumption with no-slip
condition is made to all solid wall boundaries. The near-wall treatment
is scalable wall functions. Table 2 below summarizes the fluid and
boundary conditions used in this study.
Table 3 and Table 4 list the model parameters and solution methods
for VOF and Eulerian-Eulerian multiphase models, respectively. For the
solution controls, the default settings have been applied. The con-
vergence criteria is the maximum residual less than 10−3. For transient
simulations, the flow is regarded to be stable if the monitoring para-
meters are independent on flow time.

4. Results and discussions

In this section, the numerical results in terms of ESP boosting

pressure and flow patterns are presented and compared with the cor-
responding experimental data in Barrios study (Barrios, 2007).
Fig. 5. Mesh independence check.

Table 2
4.1. Mesh independence
Fluid and boundary conditions.
Boundary Value Fig. 5 shows the CFD simulated ESP pressure increment and hy-
3 draulic efficiency in function of mesh number. As can be seen, the
Nitrogen density 1.25 kg/m
Nitrogen viscosity 1.663 × 10−5 Pa s numerical results become unchanged around the grid number of 2
Water density 998.2 kg/m3 million. This mesh is used to perform all the following numerical si-
Water viscosity 1.003 × 10−3 Pa s mulations.
Surface tension of water against 0.072 N/m
nitrogen (Yan et al., 2001)
Rotational speed 900 rpm 4.2. Single-phase simulation results
Inlet nitrogen mass flow rate 3.44182 × 10−6 kg/s
Inlet water mass flow rate 0.7869, 0.4861, 0.3962 kg/s Fig. 6 compares the CFD simulated pressure increment with the
Outlet boundary Pressure-outlet
catalog curves of ESP under single-phase water flow at N = 3600 rpm.
Solid walls Stationary relative to adjacent cell zone
No-slip wall, standard roughness As it can be seen, the numerical results of pump boosting pressure
match well with catalog curves in both trend and absolute values. The

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J. Zhu et al.
Fig. 6. Comparison of numerical results with catalog curves at N = 3600 rpm.
average discrepancy is within 5%, which validates the numerical
methodology used in this study.
Fig. 7 presents the pressure contours and streamlines on the half-
span blade-to-blade surface of the second stage impeller under single-
phase water flow with N = 900 rpm. As observed, the streamline
Fig. 7. Static pressure contours and streamlines on the second stage impeller half-span blade-to-blade surface for single-phase simulation at N = 900 rpm, (a) case 1,
(b) case 2, (c) case 3.
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Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 173 (2019) 339–350
distribution differs among three simulated cases significantly. For high
water flow rate, the streamlines are aligned smoothly inside the ESP
impeller. For smaller water flow rate, the vortex forms near the leading
edge of impeller blades. Within some flow channels, a second vortex
exists near the trailing edge and suction side of the blade. As water flow
rate decreases further, the vortex becomes bigger and extends almost all
the way to the intake. The vortex structure inside rotating ESP impeller
is critical to gas bubble behaviors and flow patterns. When bubbles
enter ESP, the shearing effect and vortex flow confine them from
flushing out, resulting in the phase-slippage and gas accumulation.
Thus, the gas pocket formation and pressure surging may be induced.
4.3. Flow patterns in visualization experiments
The flow patterns in Barrios study (Barrios, 2007) for three flow
cases in Table 1 are shown in Fig. 8, which are represented by the
photos taken by a high-speed camera. Although the gas-liquid two-
phase flow inside a rotating ESP impeller is unstable, it can be regarded
as steady state if the flow time is sufficiently long. Normally, hundreds
of impeller revolutions are enough to achieve a relatively stable flow.
As shown in Fig. 8, the flow patterns in ESP impeller vary sig-
nificantly. The large liquid flow rate in case 1 leads to a relatively small
inlet λG, at which the gas bubbles are likely to be dispersed in flow
channels without severe accumulation (Fig. 8(a)). With the decrease of
water flow rate and increase of λG in case 2, the gas bubbles seem
J. Zhu et al.
Fig. 8. Flow patterns observed from visualization experiments (Barrios, 2007), (a) case 1, λG = 0.35%, (b) case 2, λG = 0.56%, (c) case 3, λG = 0.69%.
stationary relative to ESP impeller, causing the formation of gas pocket
near the intake of ESP impeller (Fig. 8(b)). If the liquid flow rate further
drops in case 3, the growth of gas pocket can be observed as its occu-
pation extends towards the outlet (Fig. 8(c)), which implies a more
severe gas pocket formation and transition of flow patterns from bubbly
flow to intermittent flow (Verde et al., 2017).
Compared to the streamline plotting in Fig. 7, the observed flow
patterns show certain coincidences. First, gas bubbles are prone to
gather near the leading edge and pressure side of impeller blades. It can
be explained by Fig. 7(b) since vortices are detected in adjacent to si-
milar locations. Secondly, bubbles are also found to recirculate around
the trailing edge of impeller blades. As seen in Fig. 7(c), the second
vortex may contribute to such observation.
4.4. Comparison of multiphase models
For multiphase CFD simulations, the in-situ volumetric-averaged
gas void fraction (αG) can be monitored in different subdomains. The in-
situ αG is an important parameter to multiphase flow as it is an indicator
of phase slippage between gas and liquids. However, the experimental
measurement of αG in a rotating ESP impeller is extremely difficult.
Figs. 9 and 10 show the numerically calculated in-situ αG by different
multiphase models versus the flow time for case 1 and case 2, respec-
tively.
Fig. 9. CFD simulated in-situ αG versus flow time for case 1 with inlet λG = 0.35%, (a) VOF model, (b) Eulerian-Eulerian model.
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Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 173 (2019) 339–350
When the ESP rotates, uneven distribution of gas bubbles is ob-
served in Fig. 8, indicating that the phase slippage between gas and
liquid occurs. However, in Figs. 9(a) and Figure 10(a) corresponding to
the numerical results using VOF model, the simulation predicted in-situ
αG inside impellers and diffuser is almost the same as the inlet λG, e.g.
αG ≈ λG. This is contradictory to the experimental observations. It im-
plies that the phase slippage is not well captured by VOF model in
rotating ESP impellers.
For CFD simulations by Eulerian-Eulerian model in Figs. 9(b) and
Figure 10(b), the predicted in-situ αG is much higher than the inlet λG,
e.g. αG > λG. Due to the shearing effect and vortex flow, the phase
slippage in impellers is more prominent compared to other flow do-
mains. For case 1 (Fig. 9(b)), the simulated αG ≈ 2λG; for case 2
(Fig. 10(b)), the simulated αG ≈ 6λG, indicating that the phase slippage
is much stronger corresponding to more severe gas accumulation.
Due to above reasoning, the Eulerian-Eulerian multiphase model is
employed for further CFD simulations. Fig. 11 below shows the com-
parison of CFD simulated αG versus flow time in ESP impellers under
three flow cases. As can be seen on Fig. 11 (a), a final stable value of αG
is reached if the flow time is sufficiently long. The inflections on the
curves for cases 2 or 3 correspond to the breakthrough of gas inside the
first-stage impeller.
For the gas accumulation in impeller 2 (Fig. 11(b)), the trend of αG
is much different from that in impeller 1. At the beginning, the gas
J. Zhu et al.
Fig. 10. CFD simulated in-situ αG versus flow time for case 2 with inlet λG = 0.56%, (a) VOF model, (b) Eulerian-Eulerian model.
accumulates more quickly under flow case 1 due to a higher liquid flow
rate (see zoomed-in plot on Fig. 11(b)). However, the gas is easier to be
flushed out of the impeller when the liquid velocity is much higher,
corresponding to larger drag force. If the liquid flow rate decreases, the
drag force exerted on gas bubbles weakens, which is insufficient to
resist centrifugal buoyancy force. Therefore, gas bubbles remain in the
rotating impeller, resulting in a higher in-situ αG.
In addition, the CFD simulated in-situ αG shown on Fig. 11 seems to
be independent on flow time as long as the steady state is reached. This
is consistent with the visualization experiments (Barrios, 2007; Verde
et al., 2017), which reported that the flow characteristics of gas-liquid
mixture in a rotating ESP kept unchanged if the flow time is sufficiently
long.
4.5. Comparison with visualization experiments
Fig. 12 presents the isosurfaces of the in-situ αG inside the second
stage impeller. For demonstration, the final calculation results under
each flow case are shown here. Two values of αG = 5% and 10% are
selected to display the severity of gas phase accumulation. As seen, the
isosurface diminishes for larger αG corresponding to more severe gas
bubble clustering and accumulation. For cases 2 and 3, the isosurfaces
of αG = 10% are much more prominent compared to case 1, indicating
different flow patterns prevail inside the rotating ESP impeller.
Compared to Barrios' visualization experiments (Barrios, 2007), the
numerical results shown on Fig. 12 demonstrate similarities, especially
Fig. 11. CFD simulated in-situ αG versus flow time in subdomains, (a) impeller 1, (b) impeller 2.
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Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 173 (2019) 339–350
the locations of the gas accumulation. On Fig. 8(a), the photo taken
under case 1 flow condition illustrates that the bubbles are dispersed in
impeller flow channels without severe accumulation. Comparing to
Fig. 12(a), the αG isosurfaces are dispersed and discrete too. Meanwhile,
it can be observed on Fig. 12(b) that the isosurfaces of αG = 10% almost
vanish, implying that the ESP's performance did not suffer from severe
gas interference.
As λG increases in cases 2 and 3, the CFD simulated flow structures
inside ESP impellers render different scenarios, which are comparable
to the experimental observations on Fig. 8 as well. For one thing,
bubbles are prone to accumulate near the suction and pressure sides of
impeller (see Fig. 12(e)). For the other, the isosurfaces of αG = 10%
enlarge profoundly in the vicinity of ESP intake (Fig. 12d and f),
meaning that the severe accumulation of bubbles and gas pocket for-
mation initiate.
Fig. 13 shows αG contours on the half-span surface inside the second
stage impeller. The simulation results at flow time of 7.956s and 15.0s
are used to compare with experiments under flow cases 2 and 3. It is
observed that the CFD simulated distributions of αG demonstrate a
certain consistency with experimental observations. As the inlet λG
increases, bubbles are more likely to gather near the domain intake due
to rotational effect, generating a strong centrifugal buoyancy field that
attracts bubbles to move inward. For higher λG on Fig. 13(b), the gas
accumulation is more severe. Such similarity can be confirmed from the
comparison on Fig. 8.
The area-averaged αG along streamlines in the second stage impeller
J. Zhu et al. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 173 (2019) 339–350

Fig. 12. Isosurface of in-situ αG inside the second stage impeller, (a) case 1, αG = 5%, (b) case 1, αG = 10%, (c) case 2, αG = 5%, (d) case 2, αG = 10%, (e) case 3,
αG = 5%, (f) case 3, αG = 10%.

Fig. 13. Contours of in-situ αG on half-span surface in second stage impeller, (a) case 2, flow time = 7.956s, (b) case 3, flow time = 15s.

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J. Zhu et al. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 173 (2019) 339–350

Fig. 14. In-situ αG versus streamwise locations in the second stage impeller, (a) case 1, (b) case 3.

is presented in Fig. 14. The horizontal axis denotes streamwise loca- CD drag coefficient
tions, corresponding to the impeller intake to outlet from zero to unity. db representative bubble diameter [m]
As can be seen, the gas void fractions differ significantly between the F external force in momentum equation [Pa/m]
simulated cases. For case 1 on Fig. 14(a), αG increases with streamwise GVF gas volumetric fraction [%]
locations until a maximum value is reached. For case 3 on Fig. 14(b), αG Gb generation of turbulence kinetic energy due to buoyancy
declines monotonously. The difference can be ascribed to the flow [Pa/s]
pattern varying from each other. Due to a smaller λG, case 1 did not Gk generation of turbulence kinetic energy due to mean velocity
suffer from severe gas accumulation. The gas phase is dispersed in the gradient [Pa/s]
rotating impeller. A bubbly flow pattern can be observed on both g gravitation acceleration [m/s2]
Figs. 8(a) and 12(a). By contrast, the larger λG in case 3 resulted in H pump head [ft]
severe bubble accumulation near the impeller intake, as depicted by red k turbulent kinetic energy [m2/s2]
circles on Figs. 8(c) and 13(b). The intermittent flow pattern featured N rotational speed [rpm]
by gas pocket formation emerges. n number of phases
p pressure [Pa]
5. Conclusions q liquid flow rate [gpm]
QBEP liquid flow rate at best efficiency point [bpd]
This paper presents a numerical study on gas-liquid two-phase flow QG gas flow rate [cfm]
inside a rotating ESP using the transient multiphase CFD simulation QL liquid flow rate [bpd]
approach. Based on the comparison of numerical simulation results r1 impeller inner radius [m]
with corresponding visualization experiments in Barrios (2007) study, t time [s]
several conclusions can be drawn as below: T torque [N·m]
u velocity [m/s]
1. The comparison of CFD simulations using VOF and Eulerian- v velocity [m/s]
Eulerian models reveals that the phase slippage inside the rotating w velocity [m/s]
ESP impeller is not well captured by VOF model. On the contrary, YM contribution of the fluctuating dilatation in compressible
the CFD simulated flow patterns by Eulerian-Eulerian model are turbulence to the overall dissipation rate [Pa/s]
highly consistent with Barrios experimental observations. Greek letters
2. The transient Eulerian-Eulerian multiphase model is superior to VOF
model in studying gas-liquid two-phase flow and bubble dynamic αG in-situ gas void fraction
behaviors inside ESPs. ε turbulent energy dissipation rate per unit mass [m2/s3]
3. The good agreement between CFD simulated ESP performance in σ surface tension [N/m]
term of boosting pressure and flow patterns against corresponding σk constant for turbulent kinetic energy, 1.0
experimental data from Barrios visualization experiments proves σε constant for turbulent energy dissipation rate, 1.2
that the transient multiphase CFD simulation is a reliable tool to λG gas volumetric fraction at ESP inlet
study multiphase flow through ESPs, which offers engineers a cost- ρ density of the fluid [kg/m3]
efficient alternate to better understand ESP two-phase flow me- τ shear stress tensor [Pa/m]
chanisms. η hydraulic efficiency
μ dynamic viscosity [Pa·s]
Acknowledgements ω or Ω angular velocity [rpm]
Subscripts
The authors appreciate the technical and financial support of the
Tulsa University Artificial Lift Projects (TUALP) member companies. BEP best efficient point
b bubble or buoyancy
Nomenclature Cor Coriolis force
cfg centrifugal force
C1, C2 absolute velocity at impeller inlet and outlet [m/s] or the D drag force
constants in realizable k- ε turbulence model G or g gas phase

349
J. Zhu et al.
i phase index or tensor indices
j tensor indices
L or l liquid phase
p particle
q phase index
S specific speed
t turbulent
vm virtual mass force
vol volume
1 inlet of impeller
2 outlet of impeller
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