Sand control screen erosion-failure prediction method in weakly consolidated sandstone reservoir

Abstract

Sand production is one of the most common problems encountered in oil and gas field development, particularly in weakly consolidated sandstone reservoirs. Mechanical sand control screens are widely used to mitigate sand production. However, sand containing production fluid can lead to screen mesh erosion wear and sand screen prematurely failure. In this study, an experimental device was developed to simulate the local “hot spot” screen erosion damage considering the actual downhole radial sand carrying flow. The experimental results show that the erosion mass loss of the screen is positively correlated with the sand fluid velocity, sand concentration, median sand particle size and erosion time. A comprehensive sand screen erosion prediction model is established, which presents the correlations between erosion mass loss and various parameters, such as sand median particle size D50, sand concentration, fluid erosion velocity and erosion time. Compared with the field data, the predicted results accuracy of the effective life of the screen is more than 80%. The new sand screen erosion prediction model proposed in this paper can effectively predict the screen's erosion rate and service life in the field.