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It is important to accurately assess the interaction between the conductor and the soil to ensure the stability of the subsea wellheads during deepwater drilling. In this paper, numerical simulations were carried out to study the lateral dynamic bearing capacity of the conductor considering different contact models between the conductor and the soil. In particular, the contact surface model and contact element model were selected to study the dynamic behavior of pile–soil under a transverse periodic load. On this basis, the influence of the bending moment, the wellhead stick-up, the outer diameter (O.D.) of the conductor and the wall thickness (W.T.) of the conductor, as well as the physical parameters of the soil on the dynamic bearing capacity are discussed in detail. Analysis results show that the lateral deformation, deflection angle and von Mises stress calculated by the contact element model are greater than those calculated by the contact surface model. The maximum value of the lateral deformation and bending moment of the conductor decrease with the O.D. and W.T. of the conductor, and the cohesion and internal friction angle of the soil. However, the maximum value of the lateral deformation and bending moment of the conductor increase with the wellhead stick-up. Both the vertical force and the soil density have a negligible effect on the lateral behavior of the conductor. This study has reference value for the design and stability assessment of subsea wellheads.

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With the increase of well depth and recovery difficulty in oil and gas development, the downhole temperature and pressure rise unceasingly. The wellbore is simultaneously subjected on the non-uniform in-situ stress and high temperature and high pressure (HT&HP) under this complicated operation environment, which will seriously threat the wellbore integrity and bring huge economy loss. So, give a comprehensive analysis of wellbore integrity and propose corresponding prevention measures are of important significance for the safe and economic operation of HT&HP wells. In this paper, a new thermal-mechanical coupled model and analysis method for analyzing the mechanical response of casing-cement sheath-formation have been established. The model, which can be simplified to a plane strain problem, has considered the combined actions of temperature, pressure and non-uniform in-situ stress with appropriate boundary conditions. Subsequently, the corresponding equations have been deduced to obtain the mechanical responses of the model under the three kinds of actions mentioned previously. The wellbore integrity has been evaluated by proposed coefficient of failure (COF) defined by the yield criterion of Von-Mises, Drucker-Prager and Mohr-Coulomb. On this basis, the parameter sensitivity analysis of wellbore integrity is presented. With the increase of formation temperature and non-uniform degree of the in-situ stress, the COF of casing, cement and the contact surface of casing-cement decrease. The Poisson's ratio of cement has no impact on the COF of casing and the contact surface of casing-cement, while the COF of cement increase slightly. If the temperature variation is below 170°C, the cement ring cement is out of failure, and the wellbore integrity is under control. Besides, it is advantageous for wellbore integrity to keep the elasticity modulus of cement 10GPa-20GPa. This paper has a guiding significance for analysis and control of the wellbore integrity in HT&HP wells, which can allow the engineers to understand the casing failure and wellbore integrity more intuitively, and help them choose reasonable operation parameters to improve the operation life of HT&HP wells.