Casper S. Hemmingsen, new PhD student in CERE.
Casper finished his Bachelor of Science at Technical University of Denmark in 2011. At his final years he researhed the scavenging process for large two-stroke diesel engines using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). In the same period he worked as a student assistant at OSK-ShipTech A/S, where he simulated the fluid flow in different marine applications. Casper's master thesis focused on the transfer of heat in the scavenging process, and it was carried out in collaboration with MAN Diesel & Turbo SE. After his graduation, Casper worked as Research Assistant at DTU, researching in the transfer of heat for swirling flows.
Coning of either water or gas is a reservoir phenomena that introduces production problems, as instabilities of the cone resulting in water or gas breakthrough – reducing production of oil. The coning effect is generally associated with high production rates and is mostly seen at the heel for horizontal wells. To obtain a uniform inflow rate along the well, to avoid the coning, Inflow Control Devices (ICDs) are installed. The ICDs uses restriction mechanism, friction mechanism or both to achieve the uniform inflow profile. To date none of the ICDs meets the ideal requirements of an ICD for life time use, which are high resistance to plugging and erosion, and high viscosity insensitivity.
The objective during the PhD project will be to develop detailed modeling of the fluids in the well and the surrounding near reservoir using CFD. CFD is a computational method that solves the governing equations numerically using high performance computers. The non-linear equations are solved within a generated grid, which often exceeds millions of cells to reach spatial convergence. The project is a part of the Optimizing Oil Production by Novel Technology Integration (OPTION). Industrial partners in the OPTION project are Welltec and Lloyd's Register Energy, including Senergy.
More info about the OPTION-project can be found here