Numerical Simulation of Oil-Water Flow Velocity Field and Flow Pattern in Horizontal Wells and Near Horizontal Wells

Oil-water flow widely exists in oilfield development. Due to the gravity differentiation, the oil-water flow in low-flow horizontal wells has a clear characteristics of stratified flow. With the increase of flow rate, the stratified characteristics are not obvious, which leads to the difficulty of multiphase flow phase separation flow interpretation in oilfield. In this paper, the oil-water flow in horizontal wells is taken as the research object. The VOF model of Fluent software is used to study the relationship between velocity field and flow pattern distribution characteristics with water cut, well deviation angle and total flow. The results show that with the increase of water cut, the oil-water separation level gradually moves up, and the velocity of water phase is greater than that of oil phase. When the well deviation angle changes slightly, the flow stratification of oil-water changes sharply, and the flow velocity in the pipeline also changes. When the total flow rate is lower than 200 m³/d, the oil-water phases have obvious stratified flow characteristics. With the increase of flow rate, the oil-water interface fluctuates. The average velocity of oil and water is not much different.