Author’s Accepted Manuscript

Numerical investigation of contact stress between

rotor and stator in a two-lead progressing cavity
pump

Long Pan, Jinzhu Tan

www.elsevier.com/locate/petrol

PII: S0920-4105(15)30073-5
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2015.07.026
Reference: PETROL3139
To appear in: Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering
Received date: 4 March 2015
Revised date: 24 July 2015
Accepted date: 29 July 2015
Cite this article as: Long Pan and Jinzhu Tan, Numerical investigation of contact
stress between rotor and stator in a two-lead progressing cavity pump, Journal of
Petroleum Science and Engineering,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2015.07.026
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 Numerical investigation of contact stress between rotor and stator in a two-lead

progressing cavity pump

Long Pan, Jinzhu Tan*

School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816,
China
*Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +86 25 58139954. E-mail address:
tjznjut@njtech.edu.cn(J.Z. Tan).

Abstract: The contact stress between rotor and stator in a progressing cavity pump

(PCP) is critical to seal performance and service lifetime of the PCP. In this paper, an

approach to predict the contact stress and friction behavior in PCPs is proposed. The

approach is based on the results from the finite element analysis (FEA) and

Stribeck-type curve. A three-dimensional finite element model for the contact stress

between the rotor and the stator within a two-lead PCP is successfully established.

The fluid pressure, the eccentric force and the laden torque are applied to the model.

And the finite element analysis is conducted to investigate the contact stress between

the rotor and the stator in the two-lead PCP. The simulated results show that the

contact stress in the spiral seal lines (SPSLs) is always high compared to that in

warping seal lines (WSLs) at the identical relative position, and the contact stress

increases along seals from the first seal line to the last one. The maximum contact

stress of the PCP appearing in every seal line is off-center. It is found that the serious

wear and/or damage for the progressing cavity pump during operating always occurs

on the paths which are off-center of the spiral seal lines. The results are validated

against the actual phenomenon which appeared in oilfields from open literatures.

Keywords: Progressing cavity pump, finite element analysis, Stribeck-type curve,

contact stress

1
1. Introduction

A single-lobe progressing cavity pump (PCP) mainly consists of a single-lobe

screw (rotor) and a double-lobe nut (stator). The rotor turns inside an elastomer-lined

stator. PCPs are positive-displacement pumps, which are becoming more widespread

in a variety of applications, such as pumping oil, food and drink, coal slurry, viscous

chemical and so on (Nelik and Brennan, 2005). This is primarily due to their ability to

pump high viscosity fluid, to tolerate free gas and impurities, and to have high

efficiency, low capital and operating costs (Revard, 1995; Cholet, 1997).

Based on the pumping operation principle discovered by Moineau (1930), PCP

was invented and found able to pump fluids of different viscosities. Although PCP

was considered as one of the most effective artificial lifting devices (Beauquin et al.,

2007; Liu et al., 2005; Ramos et al., 2007; Wu and Li, 2010), PCP has met some

difficulties and challenges particularly in predicting wear and damage since the 1970s

when PCP was applied to oil artificial lifts in low to medium depth oil wells. The

wear and damage led to the decrease of pumping performance and lifetime in some

oilfields. There are many articles in the open literatures concerning the degradation of

the progressing cavity pump. For example, Sathyamoorthy et al. (2013) found that

there were wear marks on surfaces of both rotor and stator after a short period of

operation and evidence of debonding along the whole elastomer insert and the steel

tube. Liang et al. (2011) presented some attempts of anti-scaling techniques for the

PCPs in the Daqing oilfield with the intention of avoiding the unusual friction torque

and wear so that service lives of the PCPs were improved.

In order to improve the service life of PCPs, experiments were performed by

Wang et al. (2013) and Lv et al. (2013) to investigate friction and wear behavior of the

PCP stator rubbers in various chemical environments. In addition, finite element

2
method has been used to study various behaviors of PCPs for several years. For

example, Liu et al (2010) studied the relation between interference and laden torque

on the basis of finite element method. Zhou et al. (2013) found that the laden torque

of the PCP with the stator of the even thickness elastomer was smaller than that of the

conventional PCPs using finite element analysis (FEA). Chen et al (2013) found that

the interference and the stator thickness were the two main factors influencing the

volumetric efficiency by establishing the new finite element model of the PCP which

consisted of the stator, the rotor, the lifted fluid and the fluid-solid interaction.

The Stribeck curve is an overall view of friction variation over the entire

spectrum of lubrication, including the boundary, mixed, and full-film hydrodynamic

or elastohydrodynamic lubrication regimes. In the beginning of the last century, its

concept was initialized by Stribeck (1902). The Stribeck curve can give the functional

relationship between the coefficient of friction and the product of sliding speed and

viscosity divided by the normal load. Many researchers used the Stribeck curve to

study the lubricant regimes in different conditions. For example, Stribeck curves were

used by Vijaykumar et al. (2015) to reveal the lubrication regimes with the CuO

nano-particles in the solution. And Stribeck curves were investigated by Zhu et al.

(2015) in a wide range of speed and lubricant film thickness based on the simulation

results with various types of contact geometry using machined rough surfaces of

different orientations.

Although several works related to the optimization of PCPs were published,

there are few reports regarding the contact stress distribution and the friction behavior

which are the main factors influencing the performance of PCPs. In this paper, an

approach to predict contact stress and friction behavior between rotor and stator in

PCP was proposed. This approach combined a finite element model (FEM) with

3
Stribeck-type curve, and was applied to a two-lead PCP. Firstly, the full 3D transient

contact stress distributions were obtained by FEM, considering the fluid pressure

distribution, the eccentric motion of rotor and the laden torque within the PCP. And

then a Stribeck-type curve was used to study the friction behaviors between the rotor

and stator under various contact stress and relative sliding velocity. Finally, coupling

the FEA model with the Stribeck-type curve, the friction behavior was studied in this

work.

2. Finite element analysis

2.1. The geometrical structure and material properties

The PCP studied in this work mainly consisted of a single-lobe screw (rotor) and

a double-lobe nut (stator) with interference between the rotor and stator. The outside

diameter of the rotor, DSR, was larger than the inside diameter of the stator, DST (i.e.

DSR > DST). For the PCP, DSR is the diameter of the circle of the rotor in cross section,

and DST is the inside diameter of the semi-circle of the stator in cross section. The

rotor was made of steel with the surface chromium plated to prevent medium

corrosion and to improve wearability. In order to ensure the sealing efficiency, the

stator was mainly made of the rubber material to tolerate the repeated deformation

due to the rotor motion. The stator rubber elastomer with the outside diameter of

100mm was glued to the steel tube with the thickness of 2mm as shown in Fig.1. The

internal space of the PCP was separated into consecutive cavities (i.e. cavity1, cavity2,

cavity3, cavity4 and cavity5) by seal lines which generated from interference between

the rotor and the stator. Based on the eccentric motion of the single rotor, the cavities

are moved upwards in the pump. And the movement of the cavities makes a pressure

increase over the pump. In this work, the geometrical characteristic parameters for the

4
PCP are listed in Table 1.

In order to study the mechanical properties of the stator material for the two-lead

progressing cavity pump, the nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) material was chosen.

The elastomeric material was fabricated in accordance with our previous work (Pan et

al., 2015). The formula of the elastomeric material for the stator is listed in Table 2.

The samples from the fabricated elastomer block were prepared for the tensile and

compressive tests, respectively. The tensile test sample is a dumbbell-style slice of

work length 25mm, thickness 2 mm and width 6mm according to ISO 37-2011. The

compressive test sample is a cylindrical disc of diameter 13 mm and thickness 6.3mm

according to ISO 7743-2011. The tensile and compressive tests were performed using

the universal instrument (Model: MZ-4000D) with a precision of force measurement

(±0.5%) and a precision of displacement measurement (±0.5%). The forces and

displacements can be controlled and recorded automatically by computer. All tests

℃
were conducted at room temperature (about 25 ) and relative humidity of 45%. All

tensile tests were performed at the rate of 500 mm/min and the compressive tests were

performed at the rate of 10 mm/min under displacement-controlled mode. Fig.2 shows

the tensile test results for the elastomeric rubber material. The compressive test results

for the elastomeric rubber material are shown in Fig.3.

In order to simulate contact stress between the rotor and the stator in the two-lead

progressing cavity pump, it is assumed that the elastomeric material for the stator is

nearly incompressible in this work. For the elastomeric material, the Mooney-Rivlin

function as shown in Eq. (1) was used to model the hyperelastic mechanical behavior.

( ) ( ) ( )( )
W = c10 I1 − 3 + c01 I 2 − 3 + c11 I1 − 3 I 2 − 3 +0.5k ( J − 1)
2
(1)

where W is strain energy function. c

 , c
and c

are Rivlin coefficient, the

values of the c10, c01 and c11 are -2.838, 4.162 and 0.669, respectively. ̅ = J −
5
(2/3) ·  (p=1,2) is deviation strain invariant; k is initial volume modulus; J is

volume ratio.

For the rotor material, i.e. 45# steel in Chinese grade, Poisson ratio is 0.3, and

the elastic modulus is 210 GPa. Although the elastic modulus of the rotor material is

much larger than that of the stator rubber material, the rotor with a structure similar to

a spring cannot be assumed as a rigid body in the finite element analysis because of

the deformation under various forces during the operation. Therefore, the rotor was

assumed as an elastomer to obtain more accurate simulation results in this work. In

addition, in order to consider the effect of the rotor stretch on the simulated results,

the length of the rotor is larger than that of the stator as shown in Fig.1.

2.2 seal lines

Contact stress between the rotor and the stator within the PCP, as an essential

quantitative parameter, is critical to the seal performance of the PCP, the friction

behavior and the wear behavior. However, it is difficult to experimentally observe

inner contact status and to obtain the contact stress distribution between the rotor and

the stator because of adiaphanous stator.

The seal line represents the line in which the contact stress between the rotor and

the stator in the PCP appeared in this work. The seal line reflects the contact condition

between the rotor and the stator for the PCP. The three-dimensional seal lines for the

two-lead PCP are showed in Fig. 4. The seal lines are divided into three categories

and named as: (1) semicircle seal lines (SSLs), (2) spiral seal lines (SPSLs) and (3)

warping seal lines (WSLs). The SSLs form when the rotor surface completely

contacts with the semicircle segment of the stator in cross section, and move spirally

with the eccentric motion of the rotor along the surfaces which generate from outline

of semicircle regions of the stator inner wall. The SPSLs and WSLs appear when the
6
rotor surface contact with the straight line segment of the stator inner wall in cross

section, and move spirally with the eccentric motion of the rotor along the surfaces

which generate from outline of straight line regions of the stator inner wall.

2.3. Assumptions of the FEA model

In order to study the contact stress between the rotor and the stator for the PCP,

the finite element model of the PCP for oil artificial lifts was simplified by the

following assumptions: (1) the inner fluid pressure distribution was assumed uniform

in every cavity. For the PCP, the inner fluid pressure actually had a gradient

particularly in the clearance between the adjacent cavities, but the fluid pressure was

nearly identical in each cavity, that can be quoted (Paladino et al., 2008; Paladino et

al., 2009; Paladino et al., 2011; Andrade et al., 2011); (2) the rotation speed of the

PCP was assumed as a constant; (3) the effects of fluid temperature, chemical

corrosion, abrasion were not considered in this work.

2.4. Numerical simulation strategy

Fig. 5. represents the simulation process for finite element analysis of the contact

stress distribution between the rotor and the stator in the PCP over time. It can be seen

from the Fig. 5 that the finite element models for the PCP was simplified to a series of

static FEA models in an increment of time for continuous motion. The three types of

loads, i.e. the hydraulic pressure, the eccentric force of rotor and the laden torque,

were applied to the model for each static simulation for the PCP. The each transient

simulation included two steps. First step, contact stresses were calculated at the given

interference between the rotor and stator. In this step, the regions of seal lines and

cavities in the curved surfaces of the rotor and the stator were preliminarily

distinguished, and then different fluid pressures were applied to the cavities within the

7
PCP. Second step, the inner fluid pressure, the eccentric force load and the laden

torque were applied to the model automatically using ANSYS parameter design

language (APDL), respectively.

2.4.1. Mesh and boundary conditions

In this study, the augmented Lagrangian method was used to analyze the contact

stress distribution between the rotor and the stator in the PCP. A three-dimensional

FEA model of the PCP with the rotor and the stator was established and shown in Fig.

6. The mesh refinement was performed in the inner surface of the stator where the

size of mesh is as one fourth as the size of mesh in other regions. The local mesh

refinement could increase the accuracy of the simulation results but not take a large

increase in the computing time.

Outside surface of the stator and the top surface of the rotor were fixed, as the

boundary conditions for the FEA. As stated above (see Fig.1), the stator of the PCP

consisted of the steel tube and the elastomer lined inside the steel tube in this study.

The steel tube was assumed as a rigid body and ignored for the FEA in the work.

Therefore, the outside of the elastomer was considered not to be deformed. In addition,

the top surface of the rotor connected with the transmission shaft, which led to change

of the location of the top surface over time. Therefore, fixing the top surface, as a

reference to distinguish these static models in different time, was performed.

2.4.2. Inner fluid pressure load

Many researchers (Paladino et al., 2008; Paladino et al., 2009; Paladino et al.,

2011; Andrade et al., 2011; Gamboa et al., 2002; Gamboa et al., 2003) studied the

fluid pressure distributions in the pumps. The inner fluid pressure distributions for the

pumps changed with the operating conditions, such as viscosity and density of the
8
fluid, rotate speed, lifting pressure and so on. For an elastomeric stator pump, the

contact stress of seal lines increases with the increase of fluid pressure in the two

adjacent cavities. The seals are broken when the fluid pressures in the adjacent

cavities are larger than the contact stress. And then the fluid pressure in the cavity

with lower fluid pressure increases until the contact stress reaches the seal

requirement. Although the actual pressure distribution may be nonlinear, the increase

of the fluid pressure in each cavity is similar and the deformation of the stator is more

or less constant. Therefore, it is assumed in this study that the fluid pressure

distribution is linear for the FEA. In order to simulate the contact stress for the PCP,

it is also assumed that the fluid pressure is constant within the cavities and increase

along the seals. The fluid pressure in the Nth pressurized cavity is given by Equation

(2):

∆∗
P = + P

(2)

where ∆P represents the differential fluid pressure between the suction cavities and

the discharge cavities, N is the number of pressurizing, P represents the fluid

pressure of the suction cavities. In this work, the fluid pressure of the suction cavities

is zero and the fluid pressure of the discharge cavities is 1.2 MPa. The PCP consists of

two half-formed suction cavities, two half-formed discharge cavities and (2NPST-2)

integrated cavities, that leads to the fluid pressure pressurizes (2NPST-2) times in the

integrated cavities and the last pressure increase occurs in the discharge cavities, so at

that time the number of pressurizing is N = 2N ! − 1. However, as shown in Fig.

1, at the special moment when one of the suction cavities has closed but the last

integrated cavity has not opened, the quantity of the integrated cavities increases and

the number of pressurizing is N = 2N !. Eq. (2) is only applied to the Newtonian

fluids.
9
 For the operating pump, the clearances appear at the seal lines where the fluid

has a pressure gradient (reduction). However, the scope of the pressure gradient is

small. Therefore, the fluid pressures at the clearances were not applied in this model.

In that case, some of the contact stress results obtained from this model should

subtract the fluid pressure when the contact stress cannot meet the seal requirement.

2.4.3. Inertial force load

The dynamics load as body load applied to the nodes of rotor for the static FEA

models was implemented in this work. The inertial force generally act through the

center of mass which is difficultly found, but according to the finite element method

the inertial force discretely applied in all notes of the rotor is adopt using ANSYS

parameter design language (APDL).

The motion of the PCP rotor is shown in Fig. 7. In the figure, the point O

represents the central axis of the stator. The circle around point O as the center, with a

radius of 2E, consists of the centers belonging to the semicircle segment of the stator,

which gives the boundary of the centers of the cross section of the rotor. The point O1

represents the central axis of the rotor, and the distance from point O to point O1 is the

eccentricity E. The circle around point O1 as the center, with a radius of E, consists of

the centers of the cross section of the rotor (i.e. the locus of the center of the rotor

helix). The planetary motion of the rotor could be seemed as the center circle of the

rotor rolls along the inner locus of the minor center circle of the stator. On one side,

the center circle of the rotor rotates around point O1 with an angular velocity #
%%%%%%%&,
$

that is called the rotation. On the other side, the center circle of the rotor rotate along

the dashed circle with an angular velocity #

%& = −#
%%%%%%%&,
$ that is called the revolution of

the pump. The angle '($ and θ as the rotation angle and the revolution angle, are

10
references that specify the positions of the rotor.

In this work, the location, velocity and acceleration at every point in/on the rotor

can be calculated for any angle θ (i.e. for any instant of time t) by the following

equations:

θ = θ + ωt (3)

x cos θ ∗ x6 + sin θ ∗ y6 + cos θ ∗ E

r = .y2 = 3−sin θ ∗ x6 + cos θ ∗ y6 + sin θ ∗ E: (4)
z z6

x; − sin θ ∗ ωx6 + cos θ ∗ ωy6 − sin θ ∗ ωE

r; = 3y; : = 3− cos θ ∗ ωx6 − sin θ ∗ ωy6 + cos θ ∗ ωE: (5)
z; 0

x< x − cos θ ∗ ω= x6 − sin θ ∗ ω= y6 − cos θ ∗ ω= E

= y
r< = 3y< : = −ω . 2 = 3 sin θ ∗ ω= x6 − cos θ ∗ ω= y6 − sin θ ∗ ω= E : (6)
z< z 0

Where the initial position of the rotor is represented when the angle θ equals zero, as

shown in Fig. 6. The coordinate of the point in/on the rotor relating to the stator

coordinate system is assumed as (x, y, z), and the coordinate (x6 , y6 , z6 ) represents

the coordinate of the point in/on the rotor relating to the body-fixed coordinate system.

In this study, the rotate speed of the PCP is 100 r/min.

Based on D'Alembert principle, the accelerating rotor can be transformed into an

equivalent static system by adding the so-called "inertial force" and the external

forces. The inertial force for each node can be calculated by the following equation ：
F@ = −mB r< (7)

where mB represents the mass of the node of the rotor after discretization, the

acceleration r< is obtained from locations of the nodes multiplying by −ω=. The

mass for each node was established after each element mass was averagely distributed

to the nodes belonging to the element.

11
2.4.4. Laden torque load

The total torque over the rotor is given by the integral over the rotor surface of

the stress tensor (including pressure and friction) multiplied by the local radius and

the area as follows:

%%& × EF
C = T U̿ ∙ X& × Z[ \] (8)
G H(IJ(KLKM (N B(M. YSBN
MOL M(MPQ M(BRSL

This total torque is equal to the shaft driving torque and can be further separated

in the torques due to fluid stress and due to contact stress as follows:

%%& × EF
C = T ^ ∙ X& × Z[ \] + T U̿a_YH(SY ∙ X& × Z[ \]
G H(IJ(KLKM (N B(M. YSBN B(M. YSBN
MOL M(MPQ M(BRSL NQS_` H(KMPHM NQS_` H(KMPHM

+ T U̿ H(KMPHM YMBLYY ∙ X& × Z[ \] (9)

K(BIPQ /MPKbLKM_PQ
B(M. YSBN
YMPM(B H(KMPHM

The total torque for an operating PCP consists of two main parts, i.e. the

hydraulic torque and irreversible torque. The first integral term in Eq. (9) is the

hydraulic torque and exerted only by the "conservative forces" (pressure), as it does

not consider any losses. The second integral term is the irreversible torque due to

viscous loss of fluid, but it was ignored in this FEA model because the fluid in each

cavity was stable. The last integral term is the irreversible torque due to contact stress

and consists of the normal component and the tangential component. The friction

torque is equal to the tangential component, which is one of the main irreversible

torques in this study. The other important part of the shaft power is consumed in the

normal deformation of the elastomer. The normal deformation process consists of

compression stage and resilience stage. For the PCP, the two stages appear in the same

time, the energy is absorbed in the compression stage while the energy is released in
12
the resilience stage. For the resilience stage, the released energy may compensate part

of the compress energy and transmit to the fluid for fluid pressure increase and

viscous loss. And the hysteresis loss energy is the main energy loss due to the normal

deformation. Because the value was not large enough compared to the friction torque,

the irreversible torque due to the normal deformation of the elastomer was ignored in

the model.

The hydraulic torque herein can be calculated by dividing the hydraulic power by

the angular velocity. And the hydraulic torque for pumping the fluid can be given as:

q = AP ! = (4ED ! − πδ D ! + πδ = )P ! (10)

j∆ lmnop qkrs nop tkrsu

M= =k
= =k
P ! ∆P (11)

where q is the volume displaced in a rotation, A represents the flow area of the cross

section and M represents the hydraulic torque. The derivation process of the flow area

of the cross section was given in detail by Nguyen et al. (2014).

The volumetric capacity in Eq. (10) is theoretical capacity and not the actual

capacity. However, the theoretical capacity is generally close to the actual capacity for

the elastomeric PCPs when the differential pressure is not large enough to cause

serious leakage, and the hydraulic loss and transmission efficiency could be ignored.

When the differential pressure makes the seal broken seriously, the engine torque

must be obtained from the experiment but not from above equations. Therefore, the

model herein only gives the results when the whole seal is slightly broken. But the

model can be extended for the large differential pressure to predict the place easy to

wear on the stator inner surface based on the actual engine torque from experiments.

The friction torque as the main irreversible torque can be calculated by the

following equation:

13
 xyz
MN = T v ∗ wH ∗ =
\] (12)
B(M. YSBN
YMPM(B H(KMPHM

Where f represents the friction coefficient between the rotor and stator and Pc is

contact stress. The coefficient of friction was determined based on the contact stress

from the FEA results and Stribeck-type curve. The procedure of the Stribeck-tyoe

curve used with FEM is given as follows. Firstly, the contact stress between the rotor

and the stator from the FEA model, only considering the effect of interference, was

obtained. Secondly, the Stribeck-type curve was used to determine the coefficient of

friction (predicted value) depending on the FEA results only considering the effect of

interference. Thirdly, the predicted friction torque can be calculated and applied in the

FEA model. And then the FEA results considering all loads were obtained. Finally, the

coefficient of friction and the friction torque were refreshed depending on the

Stribeck-type curve and the new FEA results. This procedure cycles until the value of

friction torque changes little.

The total torque was calculated through Eqs. (11) and (12) in this study. In order

to simulate the contact stress between the rotor and the stator under the total torque,

the way of “rigid beam” in ANSYS was selected. And then the torque was applied to

the model for the FEA.

3. Results and discussion

In order to study the effect of the mesh density on the accuracy of the results and

to optimize the computational time, several different finite element meshes were used

in the simulation of the PCP at the beginning time of zero using the commercial

ANSYS code. Fig.8 shows the calculated results of the contact stress for different

finite element meshes. The maximum contact stresses in the second SPSL of the PCP

for the different finite element meshes are shown in Fig. 9. It can be seen from Fig. 8
14
and Fig. 9 that the results are sufficiently accurate from mesh size with 2003784

nodes, which corresponds to element size of about 1 mm. The element size was then

used throughout the study.

Fig.10 shows the contact stress distribution in all seal lines under the fluid

pressure, the eccentric force and the laden torque. The results were obtained from the

computational mesh size with 1849077 elements in which the contact elements had

356216. It can be found that the contact stress in the SPSLs was always higher than

that in WSLs at the identical relative position, and the contact stress increased

successively from the first seal line to the last one (i.e. the fourth seal line). This is

mainly because the angular variation of rotor form line is twice that of stator form line.

It leads to the large width of WSL compared with the width of SPSL in actual model.

In addition, the contact stress distribution for each kind of seal lines is similar. The

contact stress near center was higher than that at ends, and the highest contact stress

appeared off-center. It is found from Fig.10 that the highest contact stress near center

of the seal lines appeared in the SPSL and was off-center about 5mm. However, it can

be seen from Fig. 10(c) that the contact stresses increased sharply on one end of the

first SSL which was near point of intersection in the inlet cross section and on the

other end of the fifth SSL which is near point of intersection in the outlet cross section,

where the value of contact stress is close to the maximum value of contact stress in

SPSL. This is mainly because the rotor distortion makes the contact positions changed

obviously.

Fig. 11 shows contact stress contours considering the operating load effects at

different times. It can be seen from Fig. 11 that the high contact stress also appeared

in the SPSL of the PCP. This result indicates that the place easy to wear could be in

the SPSL of the PCP.

15
 The coefficients of friction between the rotor and the stator under oilfield are

different depending on different temperatures and fluid types (Livescu et al., 2014;

Livescu and Craig, 2015). The temperature of the contact surfaces may increase due

to the mechanical friction, the normal deformation and the downhole temperature. For

different oilfields, the pumping fluids are various, and the temperature also affects the

viscosity of the fluids. Therefore, for different operating conditions, the Stribeck-type

curve used to determine the actual coefficient of friction should be obtained according

to the actual operating conditions.

In order to study the friction behavior, the Stribeck curve from experiments by

Wang et al. (2013) was used here for an example. The results from Wang et al. (2013)

indicated that the solid-to-solid contact (i.e. boundary lubrication regime) appeared as

the value of ην/Ρ (η is the dynamic viscosity, ν is the sliding velocity, P is the

mean contact stress) was less than 1.75 × 10q . And the coefficient of friction almost

kept constant, when the seal lines are in the boundary lubrication regime. Fig. 12

shows the local value of ην/Ρ plotted along the contact lines. For the PCP in this

study, η is the dynamic viscosity of water, ν is the sliding velocity, P is the mean

contact stress obtained from the FEA results. It can be found from Fig.12 that the

value of ην/Ρ changed in the different contact regions of the PCP for each cross

section. Based on the Stribeck curve from experiments by Wang et al. (2013), the

friction coefficient can be obtained according to the value of ην/Ρ along the seal

lines. It can be found from Fig.12 that most of the values of ην/Ρ were less than

1.75 × 10q . And the coefficient of friction almost kept the constant. Therefore, the

friction coefficient between the rotor and the stator in the PCP could be assumed as a

constant (0.22). Note that if the mean contact stress for each cross section becomes

lower and there are obvious regions out of the boundary lubrication regime, the

16
coefficient of friction used in the FEA model could not be assumed as a constant and

should strictly follow the Stribeck-type curve obtained from the experiment.

In order to validate the simulated results using the FEM, the simulation results

were compared with the results from Sathyamoorthy et al. (2013). The results from

Sathyamoorthy et al. (2013) indicated that the wear and damage of the PCP appeared

in the areas which were off-center a distance in the SPSL in the inner surface of the

PCP. The simulated results in the study are in agreement with the experimental results

from Sathyamoorthy et al.(2013). The same phenomenon appearing in the PCP used

in the Daqing oilfield was reported by Liang et al. (2011), as shown in Fig.13 and

Fig.14. Fig.13 shows the wear in the inner surface of the PCP stator used in Daqing

oilfield. In the figure, the wear (near the middle of the line region in cross section)

appeared in the area which was off-center a small distance in the SPSL in the inner

surface of the PCP. Fig.14 shows the wear on the surface of the PCP rotor used in

Daqing oilfield. In the figure, the phenomenon which appeared in the surface of the

PCP rotor was also observed. And the wear in the rotor appeared more and more

serious from one end to the other end, which could well explain that the contact stress

increased with seal line from the first seal line to the last one. As expected, the

numerical simulated results in the study are in good agreement with the actual wear

and damage results from Sathyamoorthy et al. (2013) and Liang et al. (2011). It can

be also found that the wear was mainly relevant to the contact stress and increased

with the increase of contact stress. The FEA results indicate that the serious wear

and/or damage during operating for the progressing cavity pump may occur on the

paths which are off-center of the spiral seal lines (SPSL) and near the points of

intersection in the inlet and outlet cross sections.

17
4. Conclusions

An approach to predict the contact stress and friction behavior in PCPs was

proposed. This approach was based on the results from the finite element analysis

(FEA) and Stribeck-type curve. A detailed 3D finite element model for the contact

stress between the rotor and stator within a two-lead PCP was successfully established.

The fluid pressure, the eccentric force and the laden torque were applied to the model.

And then the finite element analysis was conducted to investigate the contact stress

between the rotor and the stator in the two-lead PCP. The simulated results show that

the contact stress in the spiral seal line (SPSL) was always high compared to that in

warping seal line (WSL) at the identical relative position, and the contact stress

increased successively with the seals from the first seal line to the last one. The

maximum contact stress of the PCP appeared in the SPSL and was off-center about

5mm. In addition, it is found that the serious wear and/or damage during operating for

the progressing cavity pump always occurred on the paths which is off-center of the

SPSL and near the points of intersection in the inlet and outlet cross sections.

The approach can well explain the actual wear and damage phenomenon for the

PCPs used in oilfield from literatures (Liang et al., 2011; Sathyamoorthy et al., 2013).

The FEA model can be extended to provide detailed information about the contact

status for different geometrical parameters and operating conditions. The tangential

stress and friction torque, which are the significant design parameters, can be

estimated using the results obtained from the FEA model and Stribeck-type curve

from wear and damage experiment between various rotor and stator materials under

various operating conditions. Studies on the clearances at the seal lines and the

pressure gradient are under investigation and will be reported later.

18
Acknowledgements

This work is sponsored by the Graduate Student Scientific Innovative Project of

Jiangsu Province (No. CXZZ13_0429), China. This work is also supported by the

Natural Science Foundation of China (51175241) and the “Six Talent Peaks” of

Jiangsu Province in China.

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22
 Tables

Table 1 Geometrical parameters of the PCP.

Geometrical parameter Value
Rotor diameter DSR 39.6 mm
Stator diameter DST 39 mm
Interference δ =( DSR - DST)/2 0.3 mm
Eccentricity E 8.5 mm
Stator pitch PST 128 mm
Number of stator pitches NPST 2

Table 2 The formula of NBR material for the PCP stator.

NBR3965 Carbon Carbon-white ZnO SA S TMTD DOP 4010NA Total
100 62 18 5 1 0.5 3 15 2 206.5

Figures

Fig. 1. Cutaway view of the two-lead PCP.

23
 Fig. 2. Tensile stress-strain curve of the NBR material sample.

Fig. 3. Compressive stress-strain curve of the NBR material sample.

24
 Fig. 4. Seal lines of the two-lead PCP.

Fig. 5. Flowchart of simulating the contact stress distribution over time.

25
Fig. 6. Finite element model of the PCP .

26
Fig. 7. Diagram of the motion for the PCP.

27
Fig. 8. The contact stresses along the z-axis of the second SPSL only considering the

interference with different mesh number of nodes at time of zero.

Fig. 9. The maximum contact stresses of the second SPSL only considering the

interference with different mesh number of nodes at time of zero.

28
29
Fig. 10. The contact stress distribution in (a)SPSLs, (b)WSLs and (c)SSLs under the

fluid pressure, the eccentric force and the laden torque.

30
Fig. 11. Contact stress contours considering effect of the fluid pressure, the eccentric

force and the laden torque at the time of (a) 0s, (b) 0.15s, (c) 0.3s and (d) 0.45s.

31
 Fig. 12. The values of ην/Ρ along (a)SPSLs, (b)WSLs and (c)SSLs.

Fig. 13. Wear marks in the inner surface of the PCP stator used in Daqing oil field

from Liang et al. (2011).

32
 Fig. 14. Wear marks in the surface of the PCP rotor used in Daqing oil field from

Liang et al. (2011).

Highlights:

1. A three-dimensional finite element model for a two-lead PCP is established.

2. The contact stress distribution in seal lines for the operating PCP is presented.

3. An approach based on Stribeck-type curve to predict friction behavior in PCPs is

proposed.

4. The actual wear and damage phenomena of PCPs appearing in oilfields are

explained.

33