Publications Scientifiques

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3

Modeling surge pressures during tripping operations in eccentric annuli
(Elsevier, 2021) Belimane, Zakarya; Hadjadj, Ahmed; Ferroudji, Hicham; Rahman, Mohammad Azizur; Qureshi, M. Fahed
The aim of this paper is to present a new numerical model to study the drilling fluid flow through eccentric annulus during tripping operations and to investigate the effect of the eccentricity on the annular velocity and apparent viscosity profiles. Many published works studied surge and swab phenomenon using simplified numerical models that do not consider the azimuthal variation of the shear stress in the eccentric annuli. In this paper, the developed numerical model takes into consideration this variation. Non-orthogonal, curvilinear coordinates were used to generate a body-fitted elliptic mesh that maps the irregular complicated eccentric annulus into a simple rectangle where flow equations can be discretized using the finite difference method then solved numerically. Besides, a commercial software (ANSYS Fluent 19R3) was used to support the findings of the numerical model. Results of these models were validated against the experimental data from literature where good agreement was observed with an average relative error of 2.6%, 3.8%, and 6.8% for the three Herschel-Bulkley fluids studied in the eccentric case. The profiles of velocity and viscosity were plotted, the contours showed that we cannot use an average velocity or a single value for the apparent viscosity to describe the drilling fluid flowing through an eccentric annulus, but, the whole profile should be used, instead. The developed numerical model was used in a parametric study to investigate the effect of eccentricity on the relationship between surge pressure and the relevant drilling parameters namely tripping velocity, annular geometry, and fluid rheological properties. The results showed that the eccentricity decreases the surge pressure independently of the previous parameters and that the rate of decrease varies from one parameter to another. The outcome of this parametric study was used to construct a surrogate model using Random Forest Regressor. Predictions from the surrogate model fit the numerical data very well with R-squared of 0.99 and 0.97 for training and test data, respectively
The effect of orbital motion and eccentricity of drill pipe on pressure gradient in eccentric annulus flow with Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids
(Inderscience, 2020) Ferroudji, Hicham; Hadjadj, Ahmed; Ntow Ofei, Titus; Rahman, Mohammad Azizur
The correct prediction of the pressure gradient is the fundamental parameter to establish an effective hydraulics program, which enables an optimised drilling process. In the present work, the effect of the orbital motion of the drill pipe on the pressure drop in an eccentric annulus flow with Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids is studied numerically for both laminar and turbulent regimes using finite volume method (FVM). Furthermore, the effect of eccentricity when the inner pipe makes an orbital motion is evaluated. Different behaviours are observed in laminar and turbulent regimes. In the laminar regime, the simulation results showed that an increase of the orbital motion speed causes a considerable increment of the pressure gradient for the Newtonian fluid. For the power-law, non-Newtonian fluid in the laminar regime, on the contrary, a decrease of the pressure gradient is observed due to the shear-thinning effect. In the turbulent regime the mentioned trends are predicted to be much weaker. As eccentricity increases, the pressure drop of the non-Newtonian fluid decreases with a more pronounced diminish in pressure drop when the drill pipe is in orbital motion for both laminar and turbulent flow regimes.
Study of Ostwald-de Waele fluid flow in an elliptical annulus using the slot model and the CFD approach
(Taylor & Francis, 2020) Ferroudji, Hicham; Hadjadj, A.; Rahman, M.A.; Hassan, I.; Maheshwari, P.; Odan, M.A.
Among consequences that can be induced by a non-uniform distribution of the stress and other causes during the drilling process is the elliptical shape of the well and consideration of this effect would improve the accuracy of the drilling fluid hydrodynamics prediction. In the present work, the elliptical shape of the annular space is simplified to apply the slot model taking into account the rotation of the inner cylinder. Moreover, the Slot model results are compared with the experimental data, as well as, with the CFD outcomes where a reasonable concordance is observed, especially for low ratios of the major and minor semi-axis. Also, the CFD results are validated with the experimental data from the flow loop setup. We concluded that the increase of the major and minor semi-axis ratio of the elliptical annulus results in a linear increase of the Ostwald-de Waele frictional pressure loss in the laminar regime for all considered rotation speeds of the inner cylinder. In addition, the increase of the eccentricity from 0 to 0.75 has a positive effect where the frictional pressure loss is decreased by almost 28% for all rotation speeds for the elliptical annulus ((Formula presented.))

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