Flow simulation and performance analysis of a drilling turbine

Abstract

Turbodrills are axial hydraulic turbines which are used in drilling hydrocarbons in extreme conditions, possessing advantages over other drilling techniques with their high speed of rotation, and higher operating torques.

In The present work, a numerical simulation of a Newtonian Drilling Mud flow was carried out through one stage of this turbine that has a stator and a rotor. The steady state mixing plane model was used for the simulations to take the rotation of the rotor into account besides the spatially averaged property fluxes of the flow. The turbulence K-ε model was used to consider the turbulence effects.

Key performance parameters are calculated as a function of rotation speed and they are validated against the experimental data of the same model geometry in real operating conditions, a good agreement have been found between manufacturer power and torque data, and our simulation results for the same variables. Various flow fields are presented such as velocity and pressure, which had a great influence on the performance of the studied turbine. This will lead to choose the best parameters configuration of an optimal field operation.