Multi-phase Flowloop Remote Laboratory

Abstract

Multi-phase systems are found in various industrial scenarios, not being an exception the oil and gas industry. The prediction and determination of the flow pattern in the production tubing is of great importance since this is directly involved with the optimization of the production itself. The study and comprehension of this fundamental branch is of great importance to become a petroleum engineer at the Clausthal University of Technology. Mixtures of hydrocarbons, water, sediments and gases found in reservoirs manifest different behaviors during their transportation to the ground’s surface. Predicting such behaviors enable a better understanding for adequate choice of pumping machinery and pipeline setups for a successful transport to their final processing facility.

In order to achieve a better predictiveness of how multi-phase systems behave in real life, the Clausthal University of Technology developed and built an industrial-scale Flowloop test unit for further investigation. This enables the engineering students a better comprehension and visualization of how multi-phase transportations react under variable production rates and mixture proportions.

Since the number of students is elevated, the utilization of the physical test unit is limited, not making it available to all of them all the time. The university decided therefore to develop an ultra-concurrent remote laboratory of the Flowloop in collaboration with LabsLand in order to revert this situation.

The goal of this remote laboratory is to provide access to all interested parties to the Multi-Phase Flowloop via a web interface, enabling them to experiment probable scenarios and using it as a complementary tool to their theoretical material provided in class. Besides, such an interface will let lecturers and petroleum experts show remotely different scenarios that make the class’s content more visualizable and understandable without recurring to the physical unit itself.

This is a digital world; millennials are used to technology and learn easily with their modern technological devices. Given the lack of availability to experiment with the physical unit itself, the professor of the Drilling and Production Department of the Institute of Petroleum Engineering at TUC encouraged his staff to search for alternatives where students would be comfortable to work with. The advantage of such multi-phase systems is the easy replicability of their experiments, making a documentation of each test very easy. However, for an appropriate and accurate documentation of each experiment, the Flowloop needs adequate equipment such as pressure transducers, positive displacement units, variable flow pumps and high-speed cameras that record the flow pattern.

With this remote laboratory, the Institute awaits an increase of interest from the students and hopes the content in class will be more understandable. This will be reflected in future exam results.

Besides, it’s hoped to encourage other institutes at the TUC and third parties to consider creating such interfaces via remote laboratory to provide full time availability to their students and give access to others in need of such information for further research.

It is time to adapt lectures and find alternatives that make learning more interesting and foment the increase of knowledge without enormous investment.