Tag Archives: ESP design

ESP Nine Step Design Procedure

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Centrilift has established a nine-step procedure to design the appropriate electrical submersible pump in order to have an efficient and cost-effective performance. This article gives an overview of the ESP nine step design procedure and outlines the procedure as a manual process to illustrate the design steps. Each of the nine steps will be explained in detail in the next articles.

Specific examples will be worked through in each step of the ESP design.

This nine step procedure is a basic hand-design of simple water and light crude oil. For more complicated well conditions, such as high GOR, viscous oil, high-temperature wells, there are many of available ESP design software (e.g. Prosper software – Product of Petroleum Expert; Pipesim software – Product of Schlumberger; Autograph PC software – Product of Baker Hughes; Solution Sizing Software – Product of General Electric; DesignRite Software – Product of Schlumberger). The fashion of use of each of these ESP design software will be presented and explained in detail in upcoming articles in our website.

Affinity Laws

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The affinity laws, also known as “Pump Laws”, for pumps are used to express the relationship between variables involved in pump performance (such as head, flow rate, shaft speed) and power.

According to the affinity laws, the following relationships exist between the actual speed of the centrifugal pump and its most important performance parameters:

  • The flow rate of a pump changes directly proportional to its operating speed.
  • The head developed by the pump changes proportionally to the square of the speed.
  • The brake horsepower required to drive the pump changes proportionally to the cube of the speed.
  • The efficiency of the pump does not change with speed changes.

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Total Dynamic Head Calculation

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In this article “ Total Dynamic Head Calculation ”, the concept of the dynamic head is further detailed. As discussed in the previous article titled: “Total Dynamic Head (TDH)”, TDH is the sum of three basic components:

  1. Net Vertical Lift (NL) = is the net distance where the fluid must be lifted,
  2. Tubing Friction Loss (TFL) = Flow disturbance in the tubing string during pumping process,
  3. Tubing Head Pressure (THP) = Pressure which the unit must pump against (back pressure caused by choking on well head).

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Total Dynamic Head (TDH)

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To properly select the pump, well performance must be estimated. Fundamentally, well performance estimates define what additional energy (i.e., volumetric flow rate and differential pressure or head) must be supplied by the pump to deliver a desired stock tank flow rate (API RP11 S4).

It is common to simplify the procedure by combining or summarizing the additional energy that the pump must supply into a single term, Total Dynamic Head (TDH). TDH is a summation of the net vertical distance fluid must be lifted from an operating fluid level in the well, the frictional pressure drop in the tubing and the desired wellhead pressure.

TDH = HD + HF + HT

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