Functional Capabilities of the High Pressure Simulator for Fracturing FluidCharacterization. Topical Report, January-December 1994

摘要

This report describes in detail the functional capabilities of the High PressureSimulator (HPS) at The University of Oklahoma for the characterization of fracturing fluids. This document also presents the investigations that can be conducted on the HPS in the area of fluid and slurry rheology, proppant transport, perforation pressure losses and dynamic fluid loss, fracture conductivity and the associated data that can be acquired. The HPS is a parallel plate flow cell with reconfigurable walls and inlet perforations and designed to operate at pressure up to 1200 psig and temperature up to 250 F. The walls of the flow cell can be reconfigured to simulate either a porous rock surface, for dynamic fluid loss studies, or a smooth impermeable surface, for rheology studies or for visualization of proppant transport and placement inside the cell. The inlet perforations can be configured with perforations of different sizes and at different spacings. The instrumentation and data acquisition system can provide real time information on the pressure loss across different positions of the cell, fluid flow rate and density, temperature and pressure, fluid leak off rate through the permeable walls and proppant maps inside the cell. The control system of the HPS has the capability for dynamic control of gap width and system pressure.