Abstract
Foam is non-Newtonian pseudo-plastic fluid, which is used for drilling, well intervention, and stimulation. Predicting the cutting transport efficiency of foam in the wellbore annulus is very important to optimize the drilling process. In this paper, the cuttings transport process with foam is numerically simulated using an Eulerian two-phase model in inclined wellbores. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software package called FLUENT was used for this goal. The effect of foam quality, foam velocity, drill pipe rotation, and wellbore inclination on cuttings transport phenomena in both concentric and eccentric annulus was investigated. The simulation results are compared to the experimental data from previous studies, with a relative error less than 8 %. This study shows the reliability of the CFD simulation in replicating the actual physical process.
Highlights
Foam is non-Newtonian pseudo-plastic fluid, which is used for drilling, well intervention, and stimulation
This study shows the reliability of the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation in replicating the actual physical process
The simulations were conducted to investigate the effect of foam qualities, foam velocity, drill pipe rotation and hole deviation on the cuttings transport ratio
Summary
Foam is a mixture of liquid, surfactant and other chemical additives, and compressed gasses. The gaseous phase could be nitrogen, carbon dioxide, natural gas or air. Metastable, compressible, non-Newtonian fluid, and has a consistency similar to that of shaving cream. Foam properties are briefly discussed (Zhu et al 1995; Rojas et al 2002; Li and Kuru 2005)
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