Parametric Study of Motor/Shroud

Jesus R. Rodriguez
Department of Geological
Heat Transfer Performance in an
and Petroleum Engineering,
University of Missouri-Rolla,
Electrical Submersible Pump
Rolla, MO 65409
e-mail: jrodri@umr.edu (ESP)
Fathi Finaish A shroud is commonly used around the motor of an electrical submersible pump (ESP) to
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering and Engineering Mechanics,
accelerate reservoir fluids past the motor for cooling. Standard practice has been to
University of Missouri-Rolla,
design the shroud/motor configuration relative to the casing using a minimum fluid ve-
Rolla, MO 65409
locity of 0.3048 m/s (1 ft/s) rule of thumb as a production strategy. The increase in the use
e-mail: finaish@umr.edu
of ESPs to exploit heavy oil reservoirs has brought up the necessity of revising this rule
in order to prevent motor burnouts. A parametric study has been conducted using the
computational fluid dynamics software CFX4.2 to examine the heat transfer behavior of
Shari Dunn-Norman the shroud motor configuration as a function of motor/shroud standoff. The objective of
Department of Geological
this effort is to examine the validity of the historical rule of thumb for heavy oils. Results
and Petroleum Engineering,
for a case study on an oil with a viscosity of 78 cp @ 320 K are presented. Further, to
University of Missouri-Rolla,
explore the possibility of enhancing the heat transfer characteristics, the flow configura-
Rolla, MO 65409
tion was modified by incorporating several openings on the shroud. Based on the obtained
e-mail: caolila@umr.edu
results, it can be concluded that fluid velocity should be kept around 0.85 m/s (2.8 ft/s) as
opposed to 1 ft/s to assure proper cooling of the motor. Also, flow redistribution by proper
placement of the slots on the shroud may produce better heat transfer between the oil and
the motor wall. 关S0195-0738共00兲00703-2兴

Introduction
An ESP is a centrifugal pump designed to add pressure head to
fluids. In oilfield applications, an ESP is placed inside a wellbore
to provide the necessary energy to lift reservoir fluids from the
producing formation to surface facilities, when there is insuffi-
cient reservoir pressure for natural production and high production
rates are required.
Standard ESPs are currently limited to applications where the
bottom-hole temperature is approximately 300°F. This tempera-
ture limitation restricts the setting depth of the pump. One ex-
ample of high-temperature reservoirs is the Central Graben of the
North Sea, where bottom-hole temperatures range up to 450°F.
The enhancement of heat dissipation from the motor of an ESP
will also improve motor efficiency and extend the run life of the
pumping system. This has a significant impact for ESP applica-
tions in satellite subsea wells, i.e., wells which are completed with
their trees at the seabed and are tied back to platform many miles
away via flow lines. ESPs are rapidly evolving as the principal
means of artificial lift in these types of wells, and the cost of
replacing a failed ESP in a subsea well is more than $1MM.
Hence, any ESP system enhancements which can extend pump
run life 共currently 1–3 yr兲 will provide tremendous cost savings.
Heat transfer from ESPs has also become a concern when pro-
ducing heavy oils, since they do not flow as readily to provide
natural cooling to the motor. Many heavy oil fields are now being
developed, for example, in Venezuela and Western Canada by
using ESPs. Heat accumulation and motor burnout are the main
problems oil companies face in those areas. The heat dissipated
from an ESP could also be used to decrease the viscosity of heavy
oils inside the wellbore in order to facilitate its pumping from
shallow reservoirs.
In a standard application, the downhole equipment is sub-
Contributed by the Petroleum Division and presented at the ETCE/OMAE2000,
New Orleans, Louisiana, February 14–17, 2000, of THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF
MECHANICAL ENGINEERS. Manuscript received by the Petroleum Division, October
26, 1999; revised manuscript received June 12, 2000. Associate Technical Editor: S.
A. Shirazi.
merged in reservoir fluid within the well’s casing, and the intake
of the pump is located above the well’s perforations. Reservoir
fluids are produced from the formation into the annular space
between tubing and casing. The reservoir fluids flow past the mo-
tor to provide motor cooling before entering the ESP through an
intake head, normally located above the seal section which sepa-
rates the motor and the intake head.
In low-pressure and low-productivity reservoirs, the pump is
located either at or below the perforations due to the lack of fluid
in the well. In this case, a shroud or jacket is installed around the
motor to redirect produced fluids through the lower end of the
string, ensuring that the fluid passes by the motor for cooling 共Fig.
1兲.
Historically, a rule of thumb suggesting that the system design
maintains a fluid velocity of 0.3048 m/s 共1 ft/s兲 past the motor has
been recommended by Brown 关1兴. This rule is based on the equa-
tion Q⫽mc p ⌬T that implies that the whole mass of fluid flowing
past the motor at any given instant absorbs all the heat generated
inside the motor. In reality, a boundary layer develops and limits
the amount of fluid that absorbs the generated heat.
Only a limited number of studies, among them Manzanilla
et al. 关2兴 and Skoczylas and Alhanati 关3兴, have examined the fluid
flow and heat transfer phenomena between and ESP motor and
shroud. These studies demonstrate limitations of the 1 ft/s design
rule for heavy oil production and other situations, but do not ad-
dress the issues regarding fluid velocity as a function of shroud
standoff.
Typically, the diameter of a shroud is chosen by selecting a
pipe that can be run inside the casing inside diameter with suffi-
cient clearance. Given the size of this shroud, the motor is then
sized to fit inside this pipe.
This study investigates the effect of shroud standoff, in a given
configuration, by both increasing and decreasing standoff, to de-
termine the effect on heat transfer rate and system pressure drop
when using a viscous fluid. A graphical method to design shroud
size for both temperature and pressure drop is presented. Addi-
tionally, a new method still under investigation is introduced as an

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Fig. 1 Standard ESP shrouded application
alternative for increasing the heat transfer inside the heated annu-
lus. This approach does not require the use of additional energy.
Computational Approach
This parametric study was conducted using the computational
fluid dynamics software CFX 共4.2兲. This software provides finite
element simulation of system flow geometry and solves the
Navier Stokes equations with allowance for viscosity changes as a
function of temperature and fluid rheology.
Figure 2 shows a schematic of a two-dimensional cross section
of the axisymmetric flow configuration considered in this study.
As seen, the flow enters the region formed by the motor casing
and the motor shroud with a fluid velocity U in to turn 180 deg and
enter the region created by the hot motor wall and the motor
shroud 共shroud standoff兲. To allow cooler fluid into this region,
several openings are incorporated on the motor shroud. The case
study considered in this paper corresponds to a well with a
0.2191-m 共8-5/8-in.兲 casing with a 0.2012-m 共7.921-in.兲 i.d. A 544
series electric motor (L⫽5.6 m– 18.4 ft) having an outer diameter
of 0.1382 m 共5.440 in.兲 is used. The typical shroud for this system
is given as a 0.1542-m 共6-5/8-in.兲 o.d. seamless pipe with an inner
diameter of 0.1541 m 共6.065 in.兲. This configuration has a stand-
off of 8 mm, 共0.315 in.兲.
The 8-mm standoff and the recommended ‘‘rule of thumb’’
fluid velocity of 1 ft/s are considered to be standard values in this
study, and all other values of standoff and velocity are normalized
to 8 mm or 1 ft/s, respectively. The parameters used in the study
were based on 20 percent increments and decrements of the stan-
dard standoff and the velocity. Table 1 summarizes these values.
Fig. 2 Configuration used in CFX4.2 modeling
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Table 1 Parametric values generated based on standoff
values
In the configuration, both motor and casing wall dimensions
were kept constant, while the shroud wall inner diameter was
varied. This is consistent with the choices available in the field for
0.1542-m 共6-5/8-in.兲 o.d. pipe. The parametric study was carried
out by modifying the shroud wall thickness, keeping the outside
diameter of the shroud constant. This assures that U in is constant
for all the different shroud standoffs considered in this study.
Other assumptions made in the study include a two-dimensional
representation of the flow system in cylindrical coordinates; con-
stant heat source at the motor wall of 12340 W/m2; non-
Newtonian, steady-state laminar flow; and an annulus with the
inner wall 共motor wall兲 uniformly heated and the outer wall
共shroud兲 insulated.
The model was calibrated using water as the base fluid obtain-
ing the classical behavior of fluid velocity and temperature
distributions.
The main evaluation was conducted using a light oil. Data for
SAE-50 motor oil was used and physical experiments were per-
formed prior to the simulation, to obtain information about the
rheological behavior of the oil at different temperatures. These
data were later extrapolated to field values. The power law model
was used to obtain the following temperature-viscosity
correlation:
␮ ⫽4.0* 1023* T ⫺9.8637
where ␮ is dynamic viscosity 共kg/m*s兲, and T is temperature 共de-
grees K兲. This equation was included in the CFX code to adjust
the viscosity of the fluid relative to ambient temperature.
Results and Discussion
Two parameters are of interest in the study results: motor
shroud standoff and the effect of fluid velocity on wall tempera-
ture and pressure drop.
Standoff influences both the velocity and temperature profile in
the annulus. Figure 3 shows the influence of the shroud standoff
on velocity profile, for a constant inlet velocity (U in
⫽0.3048 m/s). As the shroud standoff increases, the maximum
Fig. 3 Influence of dimensionless shroud standoff on velocity
profile
SEPTEMBER 2000, Vol. 122 Õ 137

Fig. 4 Influence of dimensionless shroud standoff on motor
wall temperature
Fig. 5 Variation of local Nusselt number with dimensionless
axial distance for different shroud standoffs and U inÄ0.3048
mÕs„1 ftÕs…
Table 2 Total pressure drop across the system
Fig. 6 Surface plot of the temperature response as a function of dimensionless fluid velocity
and dimensionless shroud standoff
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velocity (U max) in the heated annulus decreases and the velocity
profile shifts slightly with the maximum velocity closer to the
heated wall. This effect causes higher temperatures at the wall
and, in consequence, a larger decrease of the viscosity of the fluid
in the vicinity of the wall.
Average velocities inside the heated annulus ranged between
0.516 m/s共1.693 ft/s兲 to 1.211 m/s共3.973 ft/s兲. These values were
obtained by integrating the velocity profiles.
The thermal behavior of the fluid inside the annulus can be
analyzed by examining the effect of the shroud standoff on the
motor wall temperature and on the Nusselt number. Figure 4
shows the increase in wall temperature due to the lower fluid
velocities attained when the shroud standoff increases. The varia-
tion of the local Nusselt number with dimensionless distance is
seen in Fig. 5 for several shroud standoffs taking the inlet velocity
of 0.3048 m/s as a fixed parameter. The change of the standoff
affects fluid velocity inside the heated annulus, causing changes in
the temperature profile, which in turn affect the local heat transfer
coefficient.
Pressure drop across the system is presented in Table 2. Com-
parisons were made with the exact solution for laminar flow and
pressure drop formula given by Lundgren et al., which uses a
fully developed Fanning friction factor. For further details, the
reader may refer to Lundgren et al. 关4兴. The values obtained show
a good match for inlet velocities greater than 0.4. It is not clear
why the computational results for low flow velocities did not
match the theoretical results available in the open literature.
To examine the best shroud configuration, surface plots were
developed for both the temperature and the pressure drop response
共Figs. 6 and 7, respectively兲. Both surfaces were combined on a
single graph 共Fig. 8兲 as a function of dimensionless shroud stand-
off. Figure 8 shows that, as shroud standoff increases, pressure
drop decreases, but wall temperature increases drastically. On the
other hand, this effect reverses when the shroud standoff is de-
creased. This graph shows an optimum area between 0.8 and 1.0
shroud standoff with a possible best choice of rh/r std⫽0.9. This
conclusion agrees with additional runs made with CFX4.2
using the different pipes available for the configuration under
investigation.
To further explore the heat transfer characteristic of the shroud-
motor annulus, a set of openings or slots were incorporated in the
shroud wall to disturb the boundary layer by allowing a stream of
cooler fluid to enter the heated annulus in different places along
the length of the shroud. This incoming fluid will act in two dif-
ferent ways: first, it disturbs the thermal boundary layer, causing a
small turbulence which improves the heat distribution inside the
Transactions of the ASME
 Fig. 7 Surface plot of the pressure response as a function of dimensionless fluid velocity and
dimensionless shroud standoff

Fig. 8 Effect of shroud standoff on motor wall temperature and pressure drop
response for U Õ U in between 0.6 and 1.4

Fig. 9 Motor wall temperature variation for a shroud with one Fig. 10 Motor wall temperature variation for a shroud with
opening three openings

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Fig. 11 Effect of fluid velocity on motor wall temperature
profile
Table 3 Slot dimensions and axial location
heated fluid; and second, it brings cooler fluid at that specific
location, lowering the temperature profile in the forthcoming sec-
tion. The final result is the increase of the bulk temperature of the
fluid and a lower wall temperature at the exit of the annulus.
Figure 9 shows the effect of having one slot of 3 or 5-mm
length placed at a dimensionless distance of 0.55. The cooler fluid
passing through the slot lowers the wall temperature downstream
of the slot; but the lack of fluid at the bottom of the configuration
causes a sharp increase in temperature in that area.
Opening three slots of different size changes the temperature
profile in a manner that depends on the size of the slots. Figure 10
shows the temperature profiles obtained with three different sets
of sizes as they compare with the normal shroud.
Figure 11 shows the reduction of the temperature as a function
of fluid velocity, attained after optimizing the slot sizes 共Table 3兲.
An analysis of Fig. 11 indicates that the decrease in temperature
profile introduced by the slots, diminishes as fluid velocity
increases.
Figure 12 shows the increase in bulk temperature sustained by
the fluid as a function of fluid velocity when the shroud is perfo-
rated, in comparison with a normal shroud. These results are com-
pared with the values obtained using a manufacturer method. In
Fig. 12 Effect of inlet fluid velocity on fluid bulk temperature for a normal and a
perforated shroud as they compare with the manufacturer’s method
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all cases, the bulk temperature of the fluid in the heated annulus of
the perforated shroud is higher than the one obtained using a
regular shroud. The temperature increase ranges between 11 and
18 percent.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Several numerical experiments were conducted to investigate
the influence of fluid speed on the cooling effect inside the heated
annulus. Based on the produced results, it was observed that for
average fluid velocities ranging between 0.516 m/s 共1.693 ft/s兲
and 1.211 m/s 共3.973 ft/s兲, computed motor wall temperatures
varied from 414°K 共286°F兲 to 392°K 共246°F兲. Further, the thick-
ness of the boundary layer produced ranges between 30 and 40
percent of the shroud standoff 共rh兲 at the exit of the annulus. This
data suggests that proper fluid velocity, which may be controlled
by shroud standoff, may produce lower motor temperatures, while
pressure drop can be kept within reasonable limits. Based on the
obtained results, it can be concluded that fluid velocity should be
kept around 0.85 m/s 共2.8 ft/s兲 as opposed to 1 ft/s to assure
proper cooling of the motor.
Flow redistribution by proper placement of slots seems to be a
good alternative to increase heat transfer rate between the motor
wall and the cooling fluid. Bulk temperature increases obtained
with this method range between 11 and 18 percent. It is recom-
mended that a three-dimensional model and physical experimen-
tation that focus on velocity and temperature measurements
should be pursued to validate the results of this two-dimensional
model.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the University of Mis-
souri Research Board for the financial support of this work.
Nomenclature
dh ⫽ hydraulic diameter
Dp ⫽ pressure drop
Dp max ⫽ max. pressure drop
Dp min ⫽ min. pressure drop
L ⫽ motor length
Cp ⫽ specific heat at constant pressure
K ⫽ thermal conductivity
␮ ⫽ flow viscosity
␳ ⫽ flow density
Nu ⫽ Nusselt no., (h * dh)/k
Pr ⫽ Prandtl no., (cp * ␮ )/k
Transactions of the ASME
 Re ⫽ Reynolds no., ( ␳ udh)/ ␮ References
rh ⫽ hydraulic radius 关1兴 Brown, K. E., 1980, The Technology of Artificial Lift Methods, Penwell Pub-
rh * ⫽ rh/rh std ratio lishing, Box 1260, Tulsa, OK.
rh std ⫽ standard shroud standoff 共8 mm, 0.315 in.兲 关2兴 Manzanilla, R., et al., 1997, ‘‘Heat Transfer Between Heavy Oil Flow and
Electrical Submersible Pump’s Motor,’’ presented at the 1997 Society of Pe-
T ⫽ temperature troleum Engineers Gulf Coast Section, Electrical Submersible Pumps Work-
T max ⫽ max. temperature shop, Houston, TX, May 1–3.
T min ⫽ min. temperature 关3兴 Skoczylas P., and Alhanati, F., 1998, ‘‘Flow Regime Effects on Downhole
U ⫽ fluid velocity Motor Cooling,’’ Society of Petroleum Engineers paper prepared for presented
at Gulf Coast Section Electrical Submersible Pumps Workshop Houston. TX,
U in ⫽ inlet velocity April 29–May 1.
U std ⫽ standard fluid velocity 共0.305 m/s, 1.0 ft/s兲 关4兴 Lundgren, T. S., et al., 1964, ‘‘Pressure Drop Due to the Entrance Region in
x ⫽ distance from leading edge Ducts of Arbitrary Cross Section,’’ J. Basic Eng., 86, pp. 620–626.

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