Buckling of Bouyancy Assisted Tubulars

Abstract

Abstract Use of buoyancy has emerged to provide multiple solutions to overcome the drag problem for wells with shallow and high step-out profiles. Although both full and partial floatation methodologies have been employed successfully to extend the reach in many field cases, the influence of buoyancy on tubular instability has not been investigated yet. This paper presents an extensive experimental and analytical study, focusing on static tubular instability inside horizontal wellbores with emphasis on buoyancy. In terms of the experimental research, running tubular into horizontal wellbores was simulated with four different pipes, varying buoyancy and loading speed. Throughout the tests, axial loads both applied to the pipe and transmitted through the pipe were recorded simultaneously, with respect to pipe displacement. Experiments reveal that currently existing models give reasonable approximations as long as buoyancy is not included into the tests. The major interpretation from experiments is such that contrary to what currently existing expressions imply, i.e. tubular buckles immediately as effective weight approaches zero; even for naturally buoyant conditions, considerable amount of axial load is still required for both buckling initiation and helix formation. As buoyancy increases further, results and predictions diverge from each other considerably. In order to eliminate the discrepancies between results and predictions, theoretical study was conducted. Empirical correlations that also consider the influence of buoyancy on critical buckling loads are presented. Finally, another pipe was also tested within different buoyancy conditions to validate the equations developed. Experimental results of this pipe closely match the new analytical findings. This experimental and analytical study provides useful results for future applications with buoyancy assisted tubulars, in terms of practical engineering and design calculations.