Transient convective heat transfer in a steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process

Viscosity reduction through heat transport from steam to bitumen is one of the most important recovery mechanisms of a steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process. Both heat convection and conduction contribute to the heat transport. Although conduction is considered as dominant through most of a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Fuel (Guildford) 2019-07, Vol.247, p.315-323
Main Authors: Jia, Xinfeng, Qu, Tailai, Chen, Haidong, Chen, Zhangxin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Compressibility
Conduction
Conduction and convection
Conduction heating
Convection
Convection velocity
Convective heat transfer
Drainage
Gravitation
Heat transfer
Heat transport
Initial pressure
Mathematical models
Pressure
Pressure diffusion
Reservoirs
SAGD
Sensitivity analysis
Steam
Transient heat transfer
Transport
Velocity
Viscosity
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Summary:Viscosity reduction through heat transport from steam to bitumen is one of the most important recovery mechanisms of a steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process. Both heat convection and conduction contribute to the heat transport. Although conduction is considered as dominant through most of a SAGD process, an understanding of heat convection, especially accurate modeling of a condensate convection velocity, is still limited in the literature. This paper develops a mathematical model for the transient heat transfer beyond a steam chamber boundary in SAGD. A convection velocity is clearly formulated, which requires the coupling of heat transport and pressure diffusion. Calculation results show that in SAGD, convection plays a minor role than conduction. In addition, the relative contribution of convection can be influenced by reservoir formation compressibility, steam chamber boundary advancing velocity, and particularly by a difference between steam injection pressure and reservoir initial pressure. Correlations are regressed to estimate the relative contribution of heat convection (ratio) in the overall heat transfer process during a stabilized production period of SAGD.
ISSN:0016-2361
1873-7153
DOI:10.1016/j.fuel.2019.03.022