Equipment

The setup consists of ½”, ¼” and 3/8” straight tubing and a ½” coiled tubing. This was initially used to study the foam flow into these pipe sections but subsequently, other fluids too, have been studied using this setup. The setup is insulated at almost all the places. A MicroMotion flow meter is used for multi-variable measurement like mass flow rate, volumetric flow rate, density and temperature. The flow can be manually controlled using the variable speed transmission at the Moyno pump. The Moyno pump is a positive displacement progressive cavity pump to which a centrifugal pump (Model 5M Deming) is provided as a suction booster.  The rupture of the pressure relief valve for Moyno Pump is set at 840 psig.

The fracture slot model is a 25 ft. long slot made by a framework encapsulating two glass slabs of 0.75” thickness each with 0.5” slot between them. This setup can be used to visually analyse the flow of the slurry in the fracture.

The two positive displacement triplex single acting pumps have been donated to WCTC by Dowell Schlumberger and Halliburton. These are used to pump slurries into the pipe sections located in the outer pipe yard.  The SLB pump can be operated at maximum of 10000 psi giving a flow rate of 200 gpm against atmospheric pressure. However, the triplex pumps require a minimum of 60 psi at suction to operate without losing the prime. A Galigher centrifugal pump is used as a suction booster for the SLB pump to serve the purpose.

Storage and mixing tanks include the large 500 gal polyethylene storage tank; a 55 gal insulated mixing tank and a 200 gal ribbon blender. The 200 gal ribbon blender is used to make slurries. For small quantities, an air blender can by mounted over the 55-gal tank to make slurries.

The Halliburton mixing truck consists of two tanks of 50 bbl capacity of each. These are used to prepare slurry of sand with frac gel. The frac sand is stored into another truck having two sand silos that can store 1200 sacks of sand in total.

The MicroMotion® Elite Model CMF050 mass flow meter is used to gather temperature, flow rate and, density data. Its sensor are capable of measuring flow rate in the range 0-30 gal/min, fluid density with accuracy ±0.0005 g/cc and temperature with accuracy ±1°C or ± 0.5% of reading in °C. Differential pressures are recorded with Honeywell differential pressure transducers. All of the above mentioned measurements/signals are gathered by NICompactDAQ data acquisition system. The signals are transmitted to the main computer and displayed live on the screen through a wireless data transfer router - MOXA.