Investigation of Pressure Losses in Eccentric Inclined Annuli

Accurate pressure drop estimation is vital in the hydraulic design of annular drillholes in Petroleum Industry. The present study investigates the effects of fluid velocity, fluid type, fluid rheology, drillpipe rotation speed, drillpipe eccentricity and drillhole inclinationon on pressure losses with the presence of cuttings using both experiments and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The eccentricity of the drillpipe is varied in the range of 0 – 100% and it rotates about its own axis at 0 – 150 rpm. The diameter ratio of the simulated drillhole is 0.56 and it is inclined in the range of 0 – 15°. The effects of fluid rheology are addressed by testing power law and yield power law fluids. Both of the laminar and turbulent conditions are experimentally tested and numerically simulated. Experimental data confirmed the validity of current CFD model developed using ANSYS 16.2 platform. The goal of the current work is to develop a comprehensive CFD tool that can be used for modeling the hydraulic conditions associated with hole cleaning in extended reach drilling.