Numerical study of drilling fluids pressure drop in wellbores with pipe rotation

Abstract

Determining of the pressure loss is very complicated task in the petroleum drilling industry. In the present study the effect of different drilling muds flowing inside rotating pipe and exist from an annuals investigated. The effect of rotating speed and inlet speed. The flow is turbulent, steady and 3D with non-Newtonian fluid. The governing equations (continuity and momentum) are solved numerically using CFD with fluent soft package. The results are presented as : stream line, contours, pressure drop and wall shear stress. The results show that pressure drop is decreased when pipe rotational speed increase. slight increasing in shear stress at pipe rotating speed less than 200 rpm for same inlet velocity. Moreover, remarkable shear stress increasing can be observed as the rotational speed equal to or higher than 200 rpm.