Effect of Power Law Fluids Rheology on the Structure of Cuttings and Drilling Fluid Flow in Wellbore Eccentric Annulus.

Document Type : Research Studies

Authors

1 Assistant Professor., Mechanical Power Engineering Department., Faculty of Engineering., El-Mansoura University., Mansoura., Egypt.

2 Professor of Mechanical Engineering Department., Faculty of Engineering., El-Mansoura University., Mansoura., Egypt.

3 Mechanical Power Engineering Department., Faculty of Engineering., Mansoura University., Mansoura., Egypt.

4 Former Head of AlAlamin Oil Company., Egypt.

Abstract

 Two phase flow of drilling fluids and cuttings in The eccentric annulus between The drill hole and drill pipe is studied. The effect of drilling fluids rheological parameters upon flow structure using The power law rheological model is investigated. axial velocity distribution of both drilling fluids and cutting are examined in The presence of drill pipe rotation. cuttings volume fraction distributions as well as flow contours are considered. numerical simulation of The two phase turbulent flow is carried out using The realizable  k-ε model using The computational fluid dynamics software fluent 6.3.26.
The eccentric annulus has inner and outer  diameters of 5 cm and 10 cm and 50% eccentricity.
The results show That The velocity distributions of both drilling fluids and cuttings, as well as, drilled cuttings volumetric fraction distribution are strongly affected by The rheology of The drilling fluid. It has been verified that power law fluid consistency Kp and flow index (n) are significant parameters in determining The local flow structure in The different regions of The annulus. increasing fluids viscosity reduces The difference between The velocity distributions of drilling fluid and that of cuttings.  The effect is more pronounced for The flow with large size cuttings.

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