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Recovery of heavy oil is associated with challenges in terms of early water or gas breakthrough caused by the fingering phenomenon. This study is related to Californian heavy oil production and includes 2D simulations of heavy oil in horizontal wells with autonomous inflow control devices (AICDs).

In this paper, the fluidization properties of possible oxygen carriers for Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) have been studied. Experiments were performed in a cold fluidized bed to study fluidization properties of particles having similar properties as the oxygen carriers. The particles used were Zirconium oxides (ZrO), glass beads and sand. Minimum fluidization velocity, bed expansion and bubble behaviors of the particles have been studied. The Electrical Capacitance Tomography (ECT) was used to analyze bubbles in different planes in the bed of particles. The oxidation properties of ilmenite particles have been studied using Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA). Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) numerical method was chosen to model the particle fluidization and simulations were carried out using the commercial CFD software ANSYS Fluent. 2D models were solved for most of the particles and a 3D model was solved for white ZrO. The simulation results are compared with experimental data. The bubble behavior and bed expansion are similar in the experiments and the simulations. However, the simulated results of other fluidization properties are higher than in the experiments due to a wide size distribution in experimental particles that was not possible to consider in the simulations.