A New Model to Determine the Two-phase Drilling Fluid Behavior Through Horizontal Eccentric Annular Geometry, Part A: Flow Pattern Identification and Liquid Hold-up Estimation

Abstract

Flow patterns, liquid holdup, and frictional pressure gradient are three importance parameters to study the multiphase drilling fluid behavior. Although two-phase fluid flow is studied in detail for pipes, there exists a lack of information about aerated fluid flow behavior inside a wellbore. This study aims to identify the flow patterns of gasified fluids flowing inside a horizontal annulus, and to develop a method for measurement of liquid holdup by using the image processing techniques. Experiments have been conducted at Middle East Technical University (METU) Multiphase Flow Loop using air-water mixtures with various in-situ flow velocities. A digital high-speed camera is used for recording each test dynamically for the identification of flow patterns and the measurement of liquid holdup.

A New Model to Determine the Two-phase Drilling Fluid Behaviors through Horizontal Eccentric Annular Geometry, Part B: Frictional Pressure Losses Estimation

“…In this study, friction factor determined by Beggs and Brill (1973) as a function of Reynolds number and liquid hold up was modified by using experimental data obtained during this study. Flow pattern and holdup determination have already been described Osgouei et al (2015). By neglecting the acceleration term, total pressure gradient (lb/ft 2 /ft) is equal to the frictional losses.…”

A Novel Automated Model for Evaluation of the Efficiency of Hole Cleaning Conditions during Drilling Operations

“…In Equation ( 8), V scm represents the modified slip velocity of the cuttings (ft/min), which takes into account the influence of the mud weight and other factors. The slip velocity of the cuttings, along with the effect of the mud weight, is determined using Equation (19). This equation employs V s1 , V s2 , and V st , which are cuttings velocities calculated based on the effective viscosity, the apparent viscosity, the rate of penetration, and the cutting in turbulent flow [40].…”

“…Osgouei et al performed experiments with a multiphase flow loop, varying air and water flow rates and introducing cuttings into the annulus in different quantities. Data were collected under steady-state conditions, including liquid, gas, and cuttings' injection rates, frictional pressure drop, local pressures, and high-speed digital images to identify the solid, liquid, and gas distribution within the wellbore [19]. Van et al proposed a new drill pipe design with integrated hydro-mechanical features in each tool joint to address the limitations of mechanical hole cleaning devices (MCDs) in small diameter holes and to extend hydro-clean drill pipe applications to extended reach drilling (ERD) wells [20].…”

Automated Image Analysis and Contiguity Estimation for Liquid Phase Sintered Tungsten Heavy Alloys

“…In one study, an adaptive window indicator is adapted for choosing an appropriate threshold level for the segmentation of porous materials [26]. The authors worked on extracting physical characteristic features in multiphase flow using segmentation and image processing techniques [27][28][29][30][31][32]. In a similar study , physical characteristics like size, circularity and compactness are extracted for different pressure, temperature conditions of multiphase environments with image analysis techniques [33] in order to estimate foam stability properties.…”