Sharif Digital Repository

The particle shape is an important factor playing critical role in evaluation of the interactions between particles in high-concentration particle-fluid flows. In this paper, the well-known multisphere (MS) approximation approach and the novel rolling resistance approach are utilized to examine their performance in order to simplify the generalized shaped particle’s interactions within the framework of discrete element method (DEM) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The performance of two approaches are compared with the perfect particle’s shape geometry, for the limited cases of cubic-shaped and disk-shaped particle flows in a horizontal well drilling process as a reference scenario.... 

There are several types of drilling methods to increase the productivity of a well, such as horizontal drilling, extended reach horizontal drilling and Multilateral (ML) drilling. It is thought that ML wells could be more economic with higher productivities than horizontal or extended reach horizontal wells. Advances in ML drilling promise reduced costs, greater flexibility and increased profit potential. In the last 20 years, thousands of ML wells have been drilled worldwide, but only a small percentage of the total number of wells is multilateral. The probable reason may be lack of concise information and misconceptions surrounding the costs and perceived risks. However, recent advances in... 

Appropriate execution of drilling operation, in particular for high pressure and high temperature wells, requires accurate knowledge of behavior of the drilling fluid density as a function of pressure and temperature. In this communication, a novel mathematicalbased approach is presented to develop a reliable model for predict the density of four drilling fluid including water-based, oil-based, Colloidal Gas Aphron (CGA) and synthetic. To pursue our objective, a predictive model is proposed using a robust soft computing approach namely least square support vector machine (LSSVM) modeling optimized with coupled simulated annealing (CSA) optimization tool. Moreover, leverage approach, in which... 

This paper presents a developed CFD (Computational fluid dynamics)-DEM (Discrete elements method) model to study the cuttings transportation in aerated mud drilling process for inclined annuli at downhole conditions. The model is conducted to determine the effects of liquid flow rate, air injection rate, annulus inclination angle, elevated temperature and pressure on the cuttings transport efficiency. The motion of the fluid is computed using CFD based approach with gas–liquid interface capturing provided by the volume-of-fluid (VOF) method. The dynamics of cutting phase is studied by DEM using soft sphere approach in order to take into account the particle collision phenomenon. The... 

The knowledge of the connectivity across the reservoir not only helps to find out the potential oil recovery within a particular well configuration but also affects on the other reservoir engineering decisions such as infill drilling. Connectivity also controls the swept fraction of the hydrocarbon in place in secondary displacement other than the recoverable rates of the hydrocarbon. Most of the time we need a fast estimation of connectivity for decision making during field development. Percolation theory is a very useful tool to get this goal. According to this fact that the results of this method are universal, they could be used widely. During this study a percolation model is developed... 

Fretting fatigue occurs in engineering applications where two interacting surfaces are subjected to fluctuating forces. The fluctuating forces occasionally act as a combined loading condition. The present paper investigates fretting fatigue behaviour of 316L stainless steel under such combined (i.e. tensile and bending) loading conditions. A new fixture was developed in order to apply bending and tensile loads simultaneously. Using this fixture, the effect of different bending-to-tension ratios was investigated. The results showed that increasing the contribution of bending load improves fretting fatigue life. On the other hand, increasing grain size decreases fretting fatigue life.... 

Water injection into petroleum reservoirs is widely performed around the world for enhancing oil recovery. Understanding the underground fluid path is an important factor in improving reservoir performance under waterflooding operation. This may be used to optimize subsequent oil recovery by changing injection patterns, assignment of well priorities in operations, recompletion of wells, targeting infill drilling, and reduce the need for expensive surveillance activities. Most of the hydrocarbon reservoirs are equipped with sensors that measure the flow rate, pressure, and temperature in the wellbores continuously. Valuable and useful information about the interwell connections can be... 

Block shear failure in the base metal of welded steel connections is a potential failure mode affecting many steel structures. However, there are only a few studies on the block shear failure of welded connections under combined shear and axial loading. Combined loading is defined as a simultaneous loading parallel and perpendicular to the weld lines (or an inclined loading) in the plane of the connecting plate. In this research, a nonlinear finite element model is used to study the effect of connection geometry and weld group configuration on the block shear strength of welded connections under combined loading. In current design standards, the block shear failure planes are assumed to... 

The Computational fluid dynamics (CFD)–discrete element method (DEM) numerical simulation may be applied to predict the hydrodynamic behavior of dense particle–fluid flows. The main drawback of this simulation is the long computational time required owing to the large number of particles and the minute time-step required to maintain a stable solution. In this work, a new method to improve the efficiency and accuracy of CFD–DEM simulations is presented. The particle stiffness coefficient is used as a flexible parameter to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the model. The particle concentration distribution results are compared with experimental one’s to derive the optimum effective... 

In drilling industry, barite particles settling and barite sag as a major problem can potentially impose significant operational issues. Static conditions, in which well undergoes an extended shut-in period, could occur during different drilling and completion operations such fishing operation, tripping, and logging. Despite its importance, such phenomenon is not well understood yet. To avoid issues related to barite settlement and barite sag, a good understanding of the impact of different drilling parameters on barite settlement and sag phenomenon is required. Recently, the mathematical formulation and modeling of settlement and sag processes have gained more attention. In order to better... 

A thorough understanding and accurate prediction of non-Newtonian fluid flow dynamics in rotating annular media are of paramount importance to numerous engineering applications. This is in particular relevant to oil and gas industry where this type of flow could occur during, e.g., drilling, well completion, and enhanced oil recovery scenarios. Here, mathematically we report on physical-based (numerical) and data-driven (intelligent) modeling of three-dimensional laminar flow of non-Newtonian fluids driven by axial pressure gradient in annular media that consist of a coaxially rotating inner cylinder. We focus on the dynamics of pressure loss ratio (PLR)—the ratio of total pressure loss in... 

Fractures identification is essential during exploration, drilling and well completion of naturally fractured reservoirs since they have a significant impact on flow contribution. There are different methods to characterize these systems based on formation properties and fluid flow behaviour such as logging and testing. Pressure-transient testing has long been recognized as a reservoir characterization tool. Although welltest analysis is a recommended technique for fracture evaluation, but its use is still not well understood. Analysis of pressure transient data provides dynamic reservoir properties such as average permeability, fracture storativity and fracture conductivity.An infusion of... 

In recent decades, utilizing of water-based muds (WBMs) in drilling oil and gas wells is ever increasing comparing to oil-based muds and synthetic-based muds due to the lower environmental issues. However, the main drawbacks with WBMs are rheological properties inefficiency and shale swelling which have caused attentions turn to improvement of WBMs’ rheological properties. In this study, the effects of various nanoparticles (NPs) namely titanium dioxide (TiO2), silicon dioxide (SiO2), and zinc oxide (ZnO) on improving rheological properties and shale recovery rate of a WBM sample at two temperatures (25 and 50 °C) were investigated. The concentrations of NPs in the base mud were set at 0.01,...