Multiphase Rotodynarnic Pumps Extend their Operating Capabilities

Abstract

The paper describes the main features of the P302 multiphase pump and presents some results of bench tests carried out to check its hydraulic performances. The P302 is a rotodynamic helicoaxial pump based on the Poseidon pumping technology. It is equipped with water lubricated bearings and driven by a high speed electrical motor. The pump was designed to work with a suction pressure much lower than the P300 prototype and to deliver a higher compression ratio. It has fifteen stages of compression cells, in three different series. Before installing the pump on an onshore production site for endurance tests with actual field fluids, the steady-state behaviour and the transient responses of the pump were characterised on the IFP multiphase loop at Solaize (France). The pump was tested both with single phase fluids (liquid or gas) and a diphasic mixture (fuel-oil and nitrogen) at various GVF and suction pressures. In the paper, theoretical predictions are compared to measured data. The good results of these tests confirmed the soundness and versatility of the Poseidon hydraulics and also the calculation model ability to predict accurately the performances of rotodynamic pump over a wide range of operating conditions.References and illustrations at end of paper 153 157

Visualization study of gas–liquid two-phase flow patterns inside a three-stage rotodynamic multiphase pump

“…Falcimaigne [5,6] investigated the range of the bubble diameters within a helico-axial multiphase pump under the condition of 10% IGVF using a high-speed camera. Hellmann [7] discussed the process of the relative motion of a bubble in the rotating impeller according to the analysis of the forces of an isolated bubble.…”

Proposal of a stage-by-stage design method and its application on a multi-stage multiphase pump based on numerical simulations

“…And few of them optimized the geometry parameters in each stage of a multi-stage pump by considering the variations of flow characteristic along the flow direction under relative high inlet gas volume fractions and higher rotational speeds. Actually, as early as in the 1990s, the P302 Poseidon pump 12 has been designed to adjust the nominal flow capacity of the hydraulic cells to the flowrate reduction resulting from the gas compression. It was composed of 15 compression units in three series of five identical stages.…”