Joao Victor Carvalho de Mattos

One of the most common failure modes for structural and mechanical components of wells in the oil and gas industry is the failure due to temperature conditions, since the operation in these wells commonly takes place under high temperatures, causing the structural elements of the well to suffer excessive deformations, which can then generate those failures and operational issues. However, this is an area currently not much studied and considered in well projects, despite its great importance in the mechanical and structural analysis of wells in the oil and gas industry. Because of this, it is necessary to develop more studies about and projects that consider this type of thermal failure, the factors involved and methods to avoid it. Thus, the present study aims to develop a method, through an algorithm elaborated in Microsoft Excel, that performs an appropriate and precise analysis of the heat exchange processes and the temperature of the components of a real onshore well project located in the state of Bahia, in Brazil. This study was realized in order to assist in the analysis of the operational viability of the aforementioned project and others similar oil and gas wells projects, by calculating and checking automatically and in a simplified way the equilibrium temperatures, the thermal gradients and heat/cooling rates of the well's critical components in different operating scenarios, as well as their influence on the acting stresses and on those equipment factors of safety, using the analysis by the Von Mises Failure Criterion; and, consequently, the reliability of the analysed component and also of the system as a whole. The results obtained with the proposed analysis proved to be adequate, illustrating numerically and graphically in a manner consistent with the reality of the varied modes of operation in oil and gas wells and, therefore, fulfilling the proposed objectives.

Audience Takeaway Notes:

• This project will help the audience to understand and then considerate on their job projects the influence and importance of temperature and thermal factors on oil and gas well designs, as well as the relation between those factors and possible failures modes on well structures.
• The methodology used in this study is simple and easily reproducible, so that any researcher can use it to simplify their projects on the area of structural well design, expanding their researches and/or teachings.
• This study will improve the accuracy of well designs, mainly in casings and other structural components projects, through the consideration of the influence of thermal factors in the stresses acting on the well and the correlation of these with possible failure modes.