ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Mech. Eng.

Sec. Tribology

Volume 11 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmech.2025.1554211

This article is part of the Research TopicTribological Issues of Key Components in Transmission SystemsView all articles

Mechanical characteristics analysis of the downhole completion string in the open hole section of a small wellbore

Provisionally accepted
Liangliang  DongLiangliang DongWeijian  YangWeijian YangBo  LiBo LiXiaohua  ZhuXiaohua Zhu*
  • School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

For horizontal wells with small wellbores and large-diameter pipe strings, pipe sticking is prone to occur during oilfield completion operations. Avoiding pipe sticking can effectively save construction costs. In this paper, dynamics and Hertz contact theory are adopted, taking into account the influence of small wellbores and large-diameter pipe strings. Based on the principle of scaling, an experimental bench for the running-in of completion pipe strings is built, and a three-dimensional finite element model for analyzing the axial force and contact force of the completion pipe strings in the open-hole staged fracturing is established. The variation laws of the wellhead axial force, axial force along the well depth and contact force during the running-in process of the completion pipe strings are analyzed. The results show that with the increase in the packer size and friction coefficient in the open-hole section and the decrease in the radius of the open-hole section, the wellhead axial force will decrease, and the contact force will increase accordingly. The neutral point moves upward, the length of the pipe string section under axial pressure increases, and the pipe strings with buckling deformation are all under axial pressure. The pipe string will first buckle near the kick-off point, and then the buckling will extend upward along the straight section from the kick-off point.Moreover, the closer to the kick-off point, the more severe the buckling.The research in this paper provides a theoretical basis for the decision-making of the running-in of completion pipe strings.

Keywords: Open-hole section, small wellbores, Mechanical characteristics, Completion string, buckling of pipe string

Received: 01 Jan 2025; Accepted: 12 May 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Dong, Yang, Li and Zhu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Xiaohua Zhu, School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, 610500, Sichuan Province, China

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