Laboratory-Instrumented
Sucker-Rod Pump
To develop a knowledge base of
sucker-rod pumps, a clear sucker-
rod pump was instrumented in the
laboratory. An instrumented down-
hole pump is planned. A key ele-
ment is measuring the compres-
sion-chamber pressurepressure
inside the pump barrel. Analyses of
the compression-chamber pressure
provide a better understanding of
events during the time when both
valves are closed. Techniques are
being developed for real-time diag-
nosis of fillage and gas locking.
Introduction
Sucker-rod pumping is the principal
method of artificial lift for fields where
the reservoir pressure has been deplet-
ed. Lifting cost is a major operating
expense in these fields and producers
strive to operate pumping systems at
maximum efficiency with minimum
Artificial Lift
downtime. To validate modeling of
the pumping system, calculated re-
sults were compared with downhole
measurements of rod loads. Still, little
understanding exists of pump perfor-
mance under downhole conditions,
particularly the relationship between
the pressure of the fluid flowing
through the pump and the mechani-
cal loads that develop during the
pump stroke. The laboratory pump
enabled development of diagnostic
techniques where pump performance
can be verified visually. Instrumenta-
tion of a downhole pump will enable
testing at various field conditions.
Laboratory Pumping System
Experiments were conducted at the
artificial-lift facilities of the Petroleum
This article is a synopsis of paper
SPE 67268, Laboratory-Instrumented
Sucker-Rod Pump, by A.L. Podio,
SPE, and J.F. Gomez, SPE, U. of Texas
at Austin; A.J. Mansure, SPE, Sandia
Natl. Laboratory; and B.J. Williams,
SPE, and M.W. Mahoney, SPE,
Harbison-Fischer, originally presented
at the 2001 SPE Production and
Operations Symposium, Oklahoma
City, Oklahoma, 2427 March.
50
and Geosystems Engineering Dept. of
the U. of Texas at Austin. The pump-
ing unit and the wellhead are standard
oilfield components. Clear acrylic pipe
was used for the casing/tubing vertical
wellbore. The sucker-rod pump is a
1:1 replica of a tubing pump. The
working barrel was constructed with
Plexiglass to allow visualization of the
inner regions. The standing valve was
attached to the bottom of the tubing.
The steel plunger has a smooth sealing
surface. Pressure, load, and position
were measured. To study the fluid
dynamics in the sucker-rod pump,
four pressure transducers were
installed at the inlet, inside the barrel,
at the discharge of the pump, and in
the annular area. The polished rod
load was measured with a compres-
sion-load cell between the polished-
rod clamp and the carrier bar. A video
recorder was used to record the
dynamics of the valves and fluids in
the subsurface pump.
Sucker-Rod-Pump Dynamics
Many investigations have studied the
mechanisms involved in the pumping
system. This paper focuses on three
aspects: pressure drop through the
valves, liquid pump fillage and gas
compression, and stuffing-box friction.
Fig. 1Pressure difference between pump barrel and discharge as a func-
tion of plunger position during the downstroke.
Pressure Drop Across Valves. A pres-
sure drop exists across both the stand-
ing and traveling valves when fluid
flows through the valves. This pres-
sure drop can be used to determine the
load applied to the plunger as a result
of the pressure difference across the
plunger. Also, it can affect gas break-
out. During the downstroke, a signifi-
cant difference is observed between
the pressure inside the pump barrel
and the discharge pressure. This differ-
ence corresponds to the pressure drop
through the traveling valve and the
internal passage through the plunger.
The pressure difference is a maximum
during the middle part of the down-
stroke because this portion of the
stroke is where the plunger reaches
maximum velocity. During the
upstroke, a small pressure difference
between the pump intake and the bar-
rel was observed. This pressure differ-
ence corresponds to the pressure drop
through the standing valve. It is much
smaller in magnitude because of the
larger flow area when compared with
the traveling valve and plunger assem-
bly. The instantaneous velocity of the
plunger was obtained by differentiat-
ing the position vs. time curve. The
quadratic nature of the relationship
corroborates the findings of theoretical
MAY 2001
 analysis and indicates that the pres-
sure-drop mechanism is controlled
primarily by turbulent flow.
Partial Pump Fillage. During these
tests, at pumping speeds from 5 to 15
strokes/min, pump fillage was con-
trolled by regulating the fluid rate
entering the pump intake until a con-
stant fillage was observed inside the
pump barrel. Fillage was varied from a
100% full pump to a totally pumped-
off condition where only gas was
entering and leaving the pump barrel.
The intake and barrel pressures during
the upstroke are nearly identical (i.e., a
very low pressure drop through the
standing valve when only gas is flow-
ing through it).
Fig. 1 shows the difference in pres-
sure across the plunger during the por-
tion of the downstroke before the trav-
eling valve opens. Data are for tests
corresponding to different liquid fil-
lage from full-pump to pumped-off
conditions. The zero-pressure line cor-
responds to the point where the pres-
sure inside the pump barrel equals the
discharge pressure. The minimum
pressure (negative value) for each
curve corresponds to the point where
the traveling valve opens.
Stuffing-Box Friction. A special test
was devised to measure the stuffing-
box friction. The sheave is rotated
manually at the gear reducer in a
sequence of equally spaced start/stop
cycles. The load variation for each
cycle corresponds to the static friction
between the polished rod and the
stuffing box. This was verified further
by repeating the test after removing
the stuffing box.
Compression-Chamber Pressure
At the end of the downstroke, the
traveling valve closes when the
upward flow through the valve stops.
When the traveling valve closes, the
pressure inside the compression
chamber (space inside the pump bar-
rel between the standing and traveling
valves) will be high, equal to pump
discharge pressure. The standing
valve will not open until the pressure
in the compression chamber drops
below the pump intake pressure.
While both valves are closed, the pres-
sure inside the compression chamber
drops because the upward plunger
motion expands the compression-
chamber volume creating suction.
MAY 2001
If no gas is trapped between the
standing and traveling valves at the
beginning of the upstroke and fluid
compressibility is low, then the change
in compression-chamber pressure is
essentially instantaneous. When gas is
trapped between the valves, the
change in pressure, assuming dead oil
(oil for which no gas breaks out as the
pressure drops), can be approximated
by gas laws.
Pump Efficiency
When gas is trapped between the
standing and traveling valves at the
beginning of the upstroke, the stand-
ing valve will not open until the pres-
sure in the compression chamber
drops below the pump intake pres-
sure. The well stops pumping when
the gas/liquid ratio becomes great
enough that the effective stroke length
becomes zero (i.e., gas lock).
Several factors can lead to poor gas
separation in the pump (gas not rising
to the top of the compression chamber
during the downstroke) and include
high liquid viscosity, high gas/liquid
volumetric ratio at the pump intake,
and high stroking rates. Under such
conditions, assuming the gas-trapping
space is insignificant, the gas/liquid
ratio in the clearance space should
approach the intake gas/liquid ratio
corrected for compression. The pump
must be stroked slow enough to allow
the gas that enters the clearance space
to rise and pass through the traveling
valve during the downstroke.
Gas Locking
A pump can become gas-locked
because of inadequate compression. If,
during the upstroke, gas is trapped
between the standing and traveling
valves and the expansion fails to drop
the compression-chamber pressure
below the pump-intake pressure, the
standing valve will not open and the
pump will gas lock. The traveling
valve fails to open when the pump dis-
charge pressure does not exceed the
hydrostatic pressure in the tubing. If
there is sufficient fillage, it is possible
to compress the gas sufficiently to raise
the compression pump discharge pres-
sure above the hydrostatic pressure
causing the traveling valve to open.
For steady intake and discharge pres-
sures, as the length of the gas bubble
increases with increasing gas/liquid
ratio, first the standing valve wont
open, then the traveling valve wont
open. The full-length paper details cal-
culations for modeling gas lock.
Live-Oil Effects
For this discussion it was assumed
that the breakout and corresponding
dissolving back into solution occurs
much faster than the volumetric
changes of the pump such that the
gas is always in equilibrium with the
fluid. In this case, the gas that breaks
out during the decompression at the
beginning of the upstroke will go
back into solution during the com-
pression at the beginning of the
downstroke. This does not result in a
direct change in gas-bubble length. It
may indirectly affect the rising of the
gas up to where it will pass through
the traveling valve during the down-
stroke. Gas breakout will affect the
liquid entering the pump because the
breakout gas occupies space that liq-
uid could occupy.
Conclusions
A laboratory system was developed
that duplicates the operation of a full-
scale pumping system. Analysis of
initial results indicates that it is possi-
Artificial Lift
ble to quantify the relationship
between pressure drop through the
valves and the plunger velocity by
means of a quadratic relation. It is
expected that this relationship can be
generalized when additional tests
with various liquid viscosities are
undertaken. Measurements of the
stuffing-box friction in the laboratory
equipment suggested that similar
measurements could be made in the
field and the results of one such test
showed that stuffing-box friction can
be a significant portion of polished-
rod load.
In the compression/expansion cycle
for full, partially filled, and pumped-off
conditions, the compression mecha-
nism behaves in an intermediate mode
between isothermal and adiabatic.
The gas-locking mechanism can be
modeled with pressure data. Pump
efficiency can be expressed in terms of
the plunger travel and dead space as a
function of the gas/liquid volumet-
ric ratio.
JPT
Please read the full-length paper for
additional detail, illustrations, and ref-
erences. The paper from which the
synopsis has been taken has not been
peer reviewed.
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