Numerical Study of the Efficiency of a Heating Cable in the Dewaxing of High-Rate Wells

Abstract

The paper considers the numerical modeling of heat and mass transfer processes in an oil well complicated by asphalt-resin-paraffin deposits, taking into account the heating of the oil fluid flow by a heating cable. The results of numerical experiments were obtained by implementing a three-dimensional axisymmetric mathematical model based on the laws of conservation of mass, energy and momentum vector, and taking into account the multilayer structure of the well and the phenomenon of heat and mass transfer. The numerical study was carried out in the ANSYS Fluent finite element analysis environment, using the finite volume method. An assessment of the adequacy of the results obtained with the existing engineering methods for determining the temperature in production wells and the depth of the onset of wax crystallization has been carried out. The effectiveness of such a method of combating paraffin deposits as a heating cable at various well flow rates has been investigated. Temperature distributions were obtained along the entire length of the well on the tubing wall at different flow rates.