AQSim

AQSim · Digital Dynamic Scale Loop (DDSL) & Production Tubing Simulator (PTS)

Simulate the scale-loop test for any well, in minutes.

Thermodynamic tools predict whether scale will form. AQSim goes further — it simulates the Dynamic Scale Loop experiment itself. Put in brine chemistry, tube geometry, temperature, and inhibitor dosing; get back the differential-pressure (dP) curve, deposition profile, and inhibitor performance the test is run to produce.

Works alongside your physical DSL program — evaluate a candidate before you commit a run to it.

Treatment comparison dP vs time
Illustrative — the shape of a treated and untreated run

Why it matters

Most wells never get tested.

The physical experiment that predicts scaling — a Dynamic Scale Loop study — takes about a day per run, and of the world's millions of wells, only a fraction will ever get one. AQSim runs the same experiment in software in under five minutes, at $5 per simulation, so scaling can be evaluated on the wells that would never justify a physical run.

~1 day
per physical DSL study
< 5 min
per simulated run
$5
per simulation

The value isn't only running today's tests faster — it's evaluating the wells the rig never reaches.

What it does

The whole run, not a single number.

AQSim models what happens inside the coil across the length of the run — not just a scaling index. And because the simulator isn't bound by rig time, you run the real, un-spiked brine to blockage — not a spiked proxy — and build a treatment program for early, mid and late life instead of extrapolating from a handful of experiments.

01

Differential-pressure curve

Watch dP build over the run and read the induction time before the tube begins to block — the pressure side of the result.

02

Deposition profile

See how much scale forms and where it lays down along the tube as the run progresses — the deposition side of the result.

03

Treatment comparison

Overlay inhibitor candidates and dosing rates on one chart and compare how each holds the tube open — predicted performance to inform your own selection.

04

Built-in thermodynamics

Screen a mixture before you commit a run to it — saturation ratios and induction times, computed in the platform.

Final tube geometry radius vs length
AQSim final tube geometry on an untreated CaCO₃ example run: the scale deposit shaded between the lumen and the clean tube wall, thickest at the inlet where the tube is nearly closed.

Solver telemetry

Runtime (s)
42.76
Total iterations
125,913
Time to 1 psia (s)
1,637
Final dt (s)
0.001153

Actual output from a run on the platform: 42.76 seconds of wall-clock compute. The other figures describe the simulated run — dP crossed 1 psi at 1,637 seconds of tube time — and the timestep adapts as the tube blocks, evidence of a real transient solver, not a correlation.

untreated CaCO₃ example run live platform output

Where it fits

Simulate the experiment — don't just predict the risk.

Simulate, not just predict

Thermodynamic tools like OLI ScaleChem™ are right about what they answer: whether a brine can scale. AQSim answers the next question: when the tube blocks, and which inhibitor holds it open. Bring your OLI ScaleChem output and the simulation runs on your numbers; AQSim's own thermodynamics covers the rest, so the tools you already own become more valuable.

Alongside your physical program

Use it to prioritize and de-risk before you run a loop. It complements bench testing — it doesn't replace your lab.

Private to your account

Your brine chemistry, your results, and the parameters fitted to your products stay isolated to your account by default — your data shapes nobody else's model unless you opt in, by separate agreement. Build your own inhibitor and blend library, and we calibrate the simulator against your own historical DSL experiments — every run you have already paid for sharpens the model fitted to your system.

The science

Built by a scale scientist.

AJ Gerbino, PhD

Founder, AQSim LLC

AQSim's model is grounded in decades of produced-water and scale-chemistry research — a widely published body of work, including peer-reviewed SPE studies of scale-inhibitor performance. AQSim's job is to put that rigor in a browser: the science you'd expect from a specialist, on inputs a production chemist can set in a minute.

The model is mechanistic — chemistry, kinetics, and mass transfer — and calibrated to your rig and your chemistry. That calibration is what lets a simulation reach past the points you've measured.

On the roadmap

What's next.

More scaling minerals

Calcium carbonate today, with the field's other common scales on the way.

CaCO3 · available BaSO4 · in development SrSO4 · in development More sulfate scales · exploring
Self-serve in development

From the tube to the pipe

The Production Tubing Simulator (PTS) extends the same approach from the lab loop toward production piping, modeling where scale builds in the field, not just in the coil.

The simulator runs today — we offer it as a guided study while the self-serve product is in development.

The platform

Your chemistry, in a system you can defend.

AQSim is cloud-hosted — nothing to install. The questions that come up in a procurement review have concrete answers: who can get in, what changed and when, and what you can put in front of your boss a year from now.

A database of your own

Your brine chemistry, your cases and your run history live in a database of your own — one per customer, not one pool shared between them.

Invitation-only

There is no public sign-up. Accounts are opened by invitation, so access to your work is always deliberate.

A report you can file

Every run and comparison exports as a dated PDF — the inputs, the curves, and the key results, across as many inhibitors and concentrations as you care to compare — so a number you quoted in March is still defensible in September.

An audited calibration history

Every change to a parameter fitted to your products is recorded — the old value, the new one, who made it, when, and why — and we can produce that history on request.

Pricing

Prepaid simulation credits.

No seat licence — one credit per simulation, one credit per candidate in a comparison, blank untreated runs free. Seat-licensed tools in this category run to five figures a year.

Prices in USD. Credits never expire. Purchases are non-refundable — but if a run fails on our side, we'll put the credit back. Payments are processed securely by Stripe; we never see or store your card details.

Early access

See it run on your own chemistry.

AQSim is in active development, and we're onboarding early users across the industry — from chemical suppliers and testing labs to the operators who live with scale. Request access and we'll arrange a demo on your own brine chemistry.