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Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3936 – 3946

The 8th International Conference on Applied Energy – ICAE2016

Numerical Simulation of Steam Injection for

Heavy Oil Thermal Recovery
Guo Chunshenga, Qu Fangyia, Liu Yonga, Nian Xianboa, Chen Zianga,
Zou Yongb,*
a
Dynamics and mechanical & electrical equipment engineering technology research center , Shandong University, Weihai of
Shandong Province,264209, China
b
School of Material Science & Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan of Shandong Province,250100, China

Abstract

The steam injection technology is widely used in heavy oil production. The higher the steam injection rate
is, the more beneficial the exploitation of heavy oil is. In this paper, we choose the twodimensional rotati
on axis symmetry model, using VOF model of steam injection wells, wet steam phase change, transient a
nalysis of influence of different injection pipe string structure in vertical well section during the process o
f steam injection on steam injection parameters and changes of single and dual steam injection steam inje
ction well bore in steam parameters during the process of steam injection in horizontal wells. The analysis
results show that the vertical well steam injection by high vacuum insulated tubing make minimize the dr
yness of the steam; Toe end dry degree is higher than that of single tube steam injection when horizontal
pipe steam injection, which is conducive to the balanced development of heavy oil.

© 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
© 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Selection and/or
Peer-review peer-review under
under responsibility of theresponsibility of ICAEof the 8th International Conference on Applied Energy.
scientific committee

Keywords:heavy oil thermal recovery; hot steam; vertical well; horizontal well; VOF model

1. Introduction

With the global resources get rare, the unconventional oil and gas, represented by heavy oil, will play a

more and more important role in the world. Heavy oil is a very large and difficult flow of unconventional

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 531-88399872; fax: +86 531-88399872.

E-mail address: yzou@sdu.edu.cn

1876-6102 © 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 8th International Conference on Applied Energy.
doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2017.03.817
 Guo Chunsheng et al. / Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3936 – 3946 3937

Nomenclature

mv Mass of vapor phase transition λo Coefficient of thermal conductivity of oil

ml Variable mass transfer in aqueous phase ρw Water density
Phase change coefficient Cw Specific heat of water
Tsat Saturation temperature λw Thermal conductivity of water
v speed Cv Specific heat of steam
< > average velocity λv Thermal conductivity of steam
w Liquid physical fraction r4 The diameter of horizontal single shaft
v Steam physical fraction r5 Double inner tube diameter
! Surface tension coefficient r6 Double tube outer tube diameter
∀ Interface curvature L Horizontal wellbore length
h Enthalpy of mixture r1 Inner diameter of thickened oil pipe
λ Coefficient of thermal conductivity r2 Vacuum insulated tubing radius
Sh Phase change heat (or heat) r3 High vacuum insulated tubing radius
Si Momentum source term H Vertical well depth
o Oil volume fraction M Dryness of steam injection
dV Basic volume unit P0 Steam injection pressure of vertical well
qT Thermal conductivity of porous framework P 0’ Steam injection pressure of horizontal
R thermal resistance P Reservoir pressure
# Material thickness T0’ Initial reservoir temperature
Tin Steam injection temperature ρo Crude oil density
T0 Surface temperature Co Specific heat of crude oil
ΔT Geothermal gradient
crude oil, and in the global oil and gas account for a large proportion of. Steam injection thermal recovery
is the main method of heavy oil production. By injecting hot steam into the heavy oil can increase the
temperature of the reservoir and reduce the viscosity of heavy oil, and can increase the pressure of oil
layer and drive oil easily.
It is important to understand the heat loss of the wellbore in the process of steam injection, which has
an important influence on analyzing the steam injection efficiency. Many scholars domestic and overseas
have studied the problem of energy loss in steam injection process. At home Yu Haitao[1]had studied the
effect of steam injection effect on oil, and Lin Huichun[2]studied some controllable factors of steam
injection. Yang Lihua[3] analyzed the heat loss in steam injection process and the improvement measures.
And Liu Wenzhang[4] used the physical simulation method to determine the overall heat transfer
coefficient. Dong Xiaohui[5] et al. to established a prediction model for thermal physical properties
analysis of horizontal well thermal multi screen. Zhai Jianhua[6] considered the temperature and pressure
drop in steam liquid two-phase flow in vertical wells. Considering the ground pipeline and well bore, the
steam pressure and the decline of the dry degree of the were discussed by Shen Huifang[7]. Squier[8] et al.
overseas proposed a complete calculation method for hot water through the wellbore. Hasan and Kabir[9,10]
studied heat passage of the multiphase flow in the well, and established the perfect physics and
mathematics. Emami-Meybodi[11] et al. Developed a transient heat conduction model to evaluate the heat
transfer from the horizontal well to the formation. The heat loss of the wellbore during the injection of a
hot fluid or a cold fluid through a casing is studied by Moss and White[12], Fokeev and Kapyrin[13]. The
theoretical and experimental results of wellbore heat loss during steam injection are given by Huygen and
Huitt[14], and the importance of the radiation heat loss is pointed out at the same time.
In this paper, the VOF model is used to analyze the innovation of the heat and mass transfer process of
the oil reservoir and the heat injection; While we are in the process of setting up the model to select two
3938 Guo Chunsheng et al. / Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3936 – 3946

axisymmetric model to replace the traditional 3D model and 2D model, 3D model calculation is fast, and
accurate calculation using a two-dimensional model.

2. Physical model

Reservoir steam injection diagram is shown as figure 1. Steam injection process is divided into two
sections, one for the vertical well, and the other one was horizontal well section. Steam variation
condition is ignored around the corner for vertical well and horizontal well in the process of calculation.

Fig.1. Schematic diagram of steam injection process

Fig.2. Vertical well steam injection simulation diagram Fig.3. Horizontal well steam injection simulation diagram

Simulation in this paper is divided into two steps correspond with the mode(Vertical Wells steam
injection simulation, horizontal well steam injection simulation). Figure 2 is the simplified diagram for
vertical well steam injection model. Injected steam transfer heat to stratum through medium such as
wellbore, cement. And stratum is homogenous porous media. Figure 3 is horizontal well steam injection
simulation diagram, steam through exports into the screen, and then steam exchange heat with the
reservoir, and reservoir is homogenous porous media filling of crude oil. Steam injection along the
horizontal section is divided into single pipe steam injection and double tube steam injection. In addition
to have an opening in the end of the bottom, horizontal single tube steam injection also have some exit in
 Guo Chunsheng et al. / Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3936 – 3946 3939

the side of wellbore; double tube steam injection has the same exit with the single tube. However, it only
has one exit at the bottom as shown in figure3.

3. mathematical model

In order to carry out the simulation calculation, the following assumptions are made in this article:
(1) The physical parameters of the strata are constant and not change with the change of temperature;
(2) Sealing between the wall of the tube well is well with no leakage phenomenon;
(3) There is only water- steam -oil three-phase in the reservoir;
(4) The area of the reservoir is uniform porous medium which is rigidity and non-distortion ;
(5) The flow of the fluid in the wellbore is fully turbulent flow and the flow in the reservoir is laminar
flow;
The control equation can be looked at the appendix A. Give the model initial parameters. The vertical
well steam injection simulation related to the surface temperature of T0 ,geothermal gradient T, steam
injection pressure P0 , steam injection temperature Tin; The initial conditions of horizontal well steam
injection are the reservoir temperature T0, steam injection pressure P0, injection temperature Tin, reservoir
pressure P and other parameters.

4. Simulation results

4.1.Steam injection parameters

The related numerical simulation to simulate the required prior to the start of parameters, are shown in
appendix B.

4.2.Vertical well steam injection simulation results

Starting from the formation entrance steam injection, increasing with the depth of steam injection, the
pressure loss gets more. So steam injection tubing string in fluid pressure shows declining trend. Figure 4
describes that the steam injection tubing string including thickened oil pipe, vacuum heat insulation oil
pipe, and high vacuum insulated tubing have the wellbore pressure drop, known from the figure thickened
oil pipe steam injection pressure drop is small, the vacuum insulated tubing with high vacuum heat
insulation oil pipe steam injection pressure drop is bigger. Because the upset tubing steam injection
wellbore diameter is large, so three kinds of pressure change trend is not the same: The curves of steam
injection pressure of insulated tubing are approximately linear, while the upset tubing steam injection is
nonlinear. Because saturation pressure is associated with saturation temperature, the temperature change
curve should be parallel to the stress change curve. In three different steam injection cases, different
coupled wall boundary conditions lead to the steam injection wellbore dryness changes within difference,
steam quality in wellbore is shown.
The thickening of the tubing and the formation of the heat transfer is better, so the loss of steam
injection energy is larger, resulting in a decline in the injection steam dryness, decreased from 80% to
80%; The vacuum tubing compared with high vacuum tubing and upset tubing, has better heat
preservation performance, so the heat steam heat loss is small; High vacuum heat insulation oil pipe
relative to the vacuum heat pipe heat loss will be slightly less, so in 100 m steam injection vacuum heat
insulation oil pipe, the outlet steam quality is 74.2%;In the high vacuum heat insulation oil pipe steam
injection 100 m, outlet steam quality is 74.4%.
3940 Guo Chunsheng et al. / Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3936 – 3946

Fig.4. Variation of pressure and dry degree in vertical well

4.3 .Horizontal well steam injection simulation results

4.3.1. Horizontal single pipe steam injection simulation

 Guo Chunsheng et al. / Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3936 – 3946 3941

Horizontal well steam injection relative to the vertical steam injection is relatively complex, this is
because the vapour-liquid two-phase flow for the sake of oil vapor - liquid - phase flow. Figure 5
describes that the horizontal well steam injection tubing string along the axis of the pressure change trend,
similar
to the vertical well steam injection, stress is a declining trend. Figure 6 shows the steam injection after a
period of time the single tube steam temperature changes, due to the continuously in the process of steam
injection transfer energy to the reservoir, the temperature fell slightly. Figure 7 shows changes of the
dryness along the axis direction. The figure shows that in the curves of dryness has three obvious
mutation, corresponds to the horizontal wellbore lateral three export, in the three exit we can see dryness
decline significantly. Compared with steam injection after 1, 3, 5 days, we can find that the longer the
steam injection, the greater the steam quality in wellbore. This is due to the increased with the increase of
steam injection time outside the wellbore temperature high and within the wellbore heat transfer
coefficient decreases, so the steam within the wellbore heat loss is small.

Fig.5. Variation of steam injection pressure in single tube Fig.6. Variation of steam injection temperature in single tube

4.3.2.double pipe horizontal well steam injection simulation

Fig.7. Variation of steam injection dryness in single tube

Figure 10 and figure 11 show two pipe horizontal well steam injection process, the steam injection
tube and steam injection tube steam injection respectively 1, 3, 5 days later, the tube with hot steam
quality distribution in the inner tube. Figure illustrates the steam injection in the outer tube steam quality
change rule and single pipe steam injection dryness change rule are quite similar. In three lateral wellbore
steam mouth dryness change rule changes; while the effect of injecting steam saved by the tube, the steam
dryness drop is small. In three lateral wellbore steam mouth dryness change rule changes; while the effect
of injecting steam saved by the tube, so the steam dryness drop is small.
3942 Guo Chunsheng et al. / Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3936 – 3946

Fig.8. Variation of steam injection pressure in double tube Fig.9. Variation of steam injection temperature in double tube

Fig.10. Variation of steam injection dryness in outside tube Fig.11. Variation of steam injection dryness in inside tube

5.Conclusion

In this paper, we establish a two dimensional axisymmetric model. Combined with Mathematical
model simulation of water vapour oil three phase flow, we analyzed the changes of dry and pressure in
vertical well and horizontal well in the process of thermal recovery of heavy oil. This paper argues that in
the steam injection wellbore, the smaller heat loss of steam dryness, the less heat loss in the process of
steam injection. According to the numerical analysis of the model, this paper gets the following
conclusion.
First of all, in vertical well steam injection, steam injection wellbore type has an important influence
for the vapour injection effect. This article studies the three steam injection tubing string (upset tubing,
vacuum heat insulation oil pipe, high vacuum heat insulation oil pipe). Thickening of the tubing in the
steam injection wellbore dryness decline is the largest, high vacuum heat insulation oil pipe of steam
injection has the smallest drop in dryness, and the vacuum heat insulation oil pipe of steam injection
dryness decline is slightly superior to high vacuum heat insulation oil pipe.
From the results, a single horizontal well steam injection process in three lateral outlet steam dryness
decreases faster. Double pipe steam injection has the similar changing rule with the dry degree. In the
dual process of steam injection pipe in the steam dryness decreased linearly, and the decline is very small.
With the increase of the time of steam injection in horizontal wells, the steam injection at the end of the
steam injection well is obviously increased. Compared to single tube steam injection, steam pipe steam
injection wellbore in the dry degree is higher, as a result, the pipe gas injection is better than single steam
injection.
 Guo Chunsheng et al. / Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3936 – 3946 3943

Acknowledgements

It is gratefully acknowledged that financial support for this work has been provided for those
foundation items: 1.Natural Science Foundation of Shandong (ZR2015PE016), China; 2.Nature science
foundation of China (51305238); 3.China postdoctoral science foundation(2015M572023).

References

[1] Yu Hai-tao. The effect of Steam dryness effects on oil displacement effect. Science Technology and Engineering 2012, 12
(12);2981-2982.
[2] Yang Hui-Chun. The controllable factors influencing the dryness of steam injecting. Value engineering 2014,19(13):32-33.
[3] Yang Li-Hua. Steam injection system of heat loss and improving measures. New Technique and Material 2016,42(2):64-66.
[4] Liu Wen-Zhang. Heavy oil steam injection thermal recovery project. Beijing : Petroleum Industry Press,1997
[5] Dong XH, Liu HQ, Zhang ZX, Wang CJ. The flow and heat transfer characteristics of multi-thermal fluid in horizontal
wellbore coupled with flow in heavy oil reservoirs. J Petrol Sci Eng 2014;122:56–68.
[6] Zhai jian-hua. Two phase flow in vertical pipe flow pressure drop calculation. Mechanics In Engineering 1985,2:32-37.
[7] Shen Hui-Fang. eavy oil steam stimulation Wells surface pipeline and wellbore thermodynamic calculation. Oil Drilling &
Production Technology 1990,13(4):55-64.
[8] Squier D P, Smith D D, Dougherty E L. Calculated Temperature Behavior of ot-Water Injection Wells,J.Per. Tech 1962:
436-440
[9] Hasan AR. Kabir CS. Modeling two-phase fluid and heat flows in geothermal wdls. JPetrol Sci Eng
2010,71:77-86.
[10] Hainan AR, KabirCS.Wellbore heat-transfer modeling and applications. Jpetrol Sci Eng 2012, 86:127-136.
[11]Emami-Meybodi H, Saripalli HK, Hassanzadeh H. Formation heating by steam circulation in a horizontal wellbore. Int J
Heat Mass Transf 2014, 78:986–92.
[12] Moss J T, White P D. How to Calculate Temperature Profiles in a Water-Injection Well, Oil and Gas J 1959, 57: 11,174
[13] Fokeev V M, Kapyrin Y V. Calculation of Wellbore Heat Losses, and the Effect of Injection of Large Quantities of
Water on the Temperature Distribution in the Romashkin Rerervoir (in Russian),Neftyanoe Khozaistvo 1961,12,33.
[14] Huygen H A, Huitt J L. Wellbore Heat Losses and Casing Temperatures During Steam Injection, Prod.Montlily 1966, 30, 8.
[15] Lee, W. H. A pressure iteration scheme for two-phase flow modeling. Washington DC, Applications, Hemisphere
Publishing 1980.
[16] Brackbill, J. U, Kothe, D. B, Zemach, C. A continuum method for modeling surface tension, Journal of Computational
Physics1992, 100: 335-354.

Biography
Guo Chunsheng is a post doctor student in the Scholl of Material Science and Engineering
at Shandong University. He worked on reservoir simulation, flow slip theory between
pours media and free flow, loop heat pipe technologies, and enhanced heat transfer
technology.

Appendix A.

A.1. The control equation

3944 Guo Chunsheng et al. / Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3936 – 3946

VOF mode is adopted because water- steam -oil three-phase are involved ,in the process of steam
injection. VOF model has good interface tracking performance and can analyze mass flow density in
mass transfer process [14]. The calculation model use standard k- turbulence model and the governing
equations adopt the Navier-Stoke equation by the Reynolds average method for processing. Quadrilateral
mesh is used in computational grid, and pressure boundary condition is adopted in grid boundary. The
SIMPLE method is used to calculate. The momentum and volume fraction using QUICK equation, and
the momentum equation employ the first order upwind equation.
There is flow and heat transfer of water-steam two-phase flow in steam injection process, transformation
of water- steam two-phase flow using the phase change model [15] proposed by W.H.Lee. In the formula ,
mv ml said the steam and water phase mass transfer; for phase change coefficient; Tsat for saturation
temperature.
T Tsat (1)
m v m l l %l T ∃ Tsat ( evaporation process )
Tsat

T Tsat
m l m v v %v T % Tsat ( condensation process )
Tsat (2)

A.1.1.Steam injection control equation of vertical well

There is only steam-liquid two-phases in the vertical well, the continuity equation is as follows:
w ! v 1 (3)
∀α w m
dV ! # & (vαw )dV = w (4)
∀t ρw
∀α v m
dV ! # & (vαv )dV = v (5)
∀t ρv
In the formula, the n express speed, m/s;using the average speed of liquid flow <n>in the reservoir ,
steam through the interface of wellbore and reservoir enter into the reservoir while the speed keep
continuous, namely v=< >,aw and av express the volume fraction of oil, water and steam in the unit.
The momentum equation is as follows, k– turbulence equations is needed when solving.
∀ (6)
(ρv) !#& (ρvv) #p !#& [∃(#v !#v )]+ρg+FV
T

∀t
The density and viscosity of the mixture are shown in the following diagram.
ρ = ρw α w + ρv αv (7)
μ = μ w α w + μv α v (8)
CFS model is built to transform the continuous surface tension force into the volume force by Brackbill[16],
In the formula 9 , express coefficient of surface tension and express interface curvature. the
values of is 5.25.
αwρwςw# w !αv ρvςv#αv
FV σ (9)
0.5(ρw +ρv )
The energy equation in the wellbore is as follows. In the equation ,H is the enthalpy of the mixture, J; is
the thermal conductivity of the mixture ,W/m; the Sh is the phase change heat (or heat absorption).
 Guo Chunsheng et al. / Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3936 – 3946 3945

∀
(ρh) !#& (ρvh) #& [λ (# T)]+S h
(10)
∀t
αw ρw hw + αv ρv hv
h= (11)
αw ρw + αv ρv
hw Cpw, (T T0)
(12)
hv Cpv, (T T0)
λ = λwαw +λv αv (13)
∋-m s Hc,saturation is gas phase
Sh ( (14)
)m s Hc,saturation is liquid phase
The formation heat conduction equation is as the follow formula 15:
∀2T l ∀2T 1 ∀T 1 ∀2T ∀2 T
=  2 + + + 
∀t %c ∀r r ∀r r 2 ∀& 2 ∀y2 (15)

A.1.2.Steam injection control equation of horizontal well

Different from vertical well, the horizontal well section is an open well end containing water- steam- oil
three phase, so the control equation is more complex than the vertical well, the same equation in the
wellbore and reservoir expression is also slightly different. The equation in horizontal well was same with
the equation in vertical well. In reservoir, the momentum equation is different as shown in equation 16.

∀
∋ v ) !#& (ρ∋ vv ) ∋v ∋v
T
(ρ # p !#& [∃(# !# )] ! ρg+FV +Si (16)
∀t
In order to capture the flow characteristics near the interface between the wellbore and the reservoir, the
Si is used to express the momentum source terms in the Forhheimer-Ward formula.
μ 1
S = - ∋ v -C ρ∋ v ∋ v (17)
i k 2

A.2.boundary conditions

In this paper, the rotation axis symmetry model is established, so the axis of the steam injection wellbore
is a rotational symmetry axis. Steam injection port is constant flow inlet. The vertical well exit is a
constant pressure boundary, and the horizontal well exit is a fluid coupling boundary where fluid can be
freely passed, and the boundary of steam reservoir in horizontal well is a constant pressure boundary. The
interface between horizontal well steam injection pipe and reservoir use the continuous boundary
conditions of shear stress put forward by Neale and Nader .
∀ ∀∗ + (18)
∃ ∃
∀

!
∀


In horizontal wells, there are annular hot air, casing, cement ring and so on. In order to simplify the
calculation, the multi layer medium is coupled into one interface. The physical parameters of the interface
can be obtained by calculating. According to the relationship between the thermal resistance and thermal
conductivity. because the cross-sectional area have the same size, the cross-sectional area can be ignored,
3946 Guo Chunsheng et al. / Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3936 – 3946

we can think R= , R is the thermal resistance, is the thermal conductivity, is the

thickness of the material . The materials are connected in series with R=R1+R2+R3+R4
#∗+∗#∗()∗#∗,)∗#∗−)∗#∗. , so we can calculate coupling wall thermal conductivity. We can do the same
coupling calculation of wall surface density, heat capacity etc..

Appendix B.

B.The initial parameters of simulation

Table 1. Parameters of steam injection

Parameters units symbol values

o
Surface temperature C T0 20
o
Geothermal gradient C/100m ΔT 3
Inner diameter of thickened oil pipe mm r1 75.9
Vacuum insulated tubing radius mm r2 60.32
High vacuum insulated tubing radius mm r3 60.32
Vertical well depth m H 100
Dryness of steam injection M 0.8
Steam injection pressure of vertical well MPa P0 10
Steam injection pressure of horizontal well MPa P0’ 9.5
Reservoir pressure MPa P 10
o
Initial reservoir temperature C T0’ 23
Crude oil density kg/m3 ρo 980
Specific heat of crude oil kJ/(kg·K) Co 1.5
Coefficient of thermal conductivity of crude oil W/m·oC λo 0.18
Water density kg/m3 ρw 998
Specific heat of water kJ/(kg·K) Cw 4.178
Thermal conductivity of water W/m·oC λw 0.065
Specific heat of steam kJ/(kg·K) Cv 6.73
o
Thermal conductivity of steam W/m· C λv 0.079
The diameter of horizontal single shaft mm r4 79.5
Double inner tube diameter mm r5 40.32
Double tube outer tube diameter mm r6 79.5
Horizontal wellbore length m L 100