Development of Experimental Setup to Evaluate Drilling Fluid's Characteristic Using Tomography Method

• Main Author: Muhammad, Norkhairi
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Teknologi Petronas 2011
• Subjects: TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/7214/1/2011%20-%20Development%20of%20experimental%20setup%20to%20evaluate%20drilling%20fluid%27s%20characteristic%20using%20tomogr.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/7214/

This report covers the application of drilling fluids and tomography method in the drilling operation. The objectives of the project are to study the characteristics of drilling fluid and to develop new possible testing procedure to evaluate drilling fluid's properties. The literature review describes the drilling fluid additive functions and, current alternatives used focusing on lost circulation and fracture analysis. This report focuses on the Lost Circulation Material (LCM) in drilling fluid. It also confers the methodologies for LCM to resolve severe lost circulation problems and designing the drilling fluid samples, the drilling fluid densities, the rheological tests and the filtration performance volume tests. Tests have been conducted in accordance with the API 13-B and the related equipments are mixer, mud balance, viscometer and high temperature high pressure (HTHP) filters press. Properties measured through this experiment are density, plastic viscosity, yield point and I 0-second and I 0-minute gel strength. Author has tried to use the equipment available in the Petroleum Department and found out that HTHP filter press equipment for filtration study is not complete for the purpose of evaluating fihration properties of the drilling fluid. The fracture study is included to review the condition of the wellbore when the fracture happen and the solution taken to solve the problem. The study discovered that there is a need to have a new type of testing method in determining the effectiveness of LCM drilling fluid. A experimental rig has been designed and fubricated to evaluate drilling fluid but later discovered that a lot of assumptions have to be made making the rig condition too ideal and unrealistic. The discussion part explained on the results from the calibration and online measurement of the tomography sensor. The preliminary results shows positive signs of correlation between the properties. The conclusion chapter consists of the overall conclusions and recommendations regarding the project. There are a lot more analysis and procedures that can be done in the future to improve the resu Its.