Experimental Research on Key Factors Influencing the Expansion Performance of New Type Sealing Materials

To improve the borehole sealing effect, especially that of coal seam with low permeability and micro fissures, this paper takes the expansion rate of the sealing material as the response value and establishes the quadratic model embracing the expansion rate and various experimental factors by designing orthogonal experiments. The response surface is used to further determine the significance order of each key factor according to the expansion rate and adjust the admixture content to obtain the optimal ratio of the sealing material. For the research investigating a sealing material, the optimal ratio of the sealing material is obtained: the content of water reducing agent of 0.5%, the content of retarder of 0.04%, water-cement ratio of 0.8, and the content of expansion agent of 10%. At this time, the expansion rate reaches 3.136%. Besides, a scanning electron microscope is used to observe the microscopic morphology of the material. According to the scanning electron microscopy analysis of new borehole sealing materials, the surface of the new borehole sealing material shows no holes and possesses compactness; and a large amount of ettringite is formed on the surface of the hydration product of hardened cement slurry. The ettringite improves the expansibility of the material. The new sealing material provides a new idea for gas sealing, which is of great significance to improve the efficiency of borehole extraction, improve the utilization rate of resources, and prevent gas accidents.

Swelling Elastomers and Tubular Expansion—Numerical Investigation

Swell packers were initially used for repair of old and damaged wells, but they are now increasingly used for higher productivity and profitability through developments like slim well design and reduced-cement or cementless completions. Solid expandable tubular (SET) technology has gained popularity in the petroleum development industry as it can reduce well costs and improve well performance. A conical mandrel is pushed or pulled through a petroleum tubular, either hydraulically or mechanically, to expand it (in-situ) to the desired diameter. In SET applications such as water shutoff and zonal isolation, swelling elastomers are an obvious choice as a sealing material. For proper downhole deployment of swell packers in SET applications, it is important to have a good idea about their behavior under a given set of field conditions. Design and manufacturing of SET applications using swelling elastomers as sealing elements also needs some sort of seal performance analysis.

PROSPECTING PAPERS AND PATENTS OF GAS LIFT VALVES TECHNOLOGY

Between the phases of oil exploration and production, there is this oil transfer through natural or artificial elevation method. When this method is natural, the pressure in the reservoir is sufficiently high and the fluids in it can emerge to the surface, but when this pressure is insufficient, the fluids do not reach the surface without the use of artificial lifting methods. Among the struggles to be solved by engineering, there is the optimization of the geometry of the lift gas valves (VGL) and the sealing material. In this context, this article presents the prospecting of papers and patents related to the technological advances of VGL published in the last five years (2016 to 2020) and as a research contribution, there is the identification of solutions regarding the aforementioned optimization. The ScienceDirect, Scopus, CAPES Periodical Portal, and Web of Science databases were used, and the patent search in the database of the European Patent Office (EPO), Espacenet. The results showed that the number of papers published in this area is low, showing that there have been more publications on the subject in the last three years. In addition, China and the United States of America are the countries with the highest number of patents granted in the years surveyed, and the two North American inventors have the greatest number of inventions.

Hydrophobic Dielectric Sealing Material Enabled Highly Reliable Electrical Connectors for Downhole Data and Power Transmission Application

A high-strength dielectric sealing material has been developed for sealing electrical connectors, feedthroughs, bulkheads, and interconnectors. X-ray diffraction analyses have identified that the microstructures of the sealing material could be of amorphous and α-phase mixed morphology, α+β mixed phase, and β-phase dominated tetrahedral microstructure, which primarily depend upon the material processing temperature. The electrical insulation resistance of the β-phase dominated sealing material have nearly two times higher than that of α+β mixed phase sealing material. Both β-phase dominated and α+β mixed phase sealing materials have shown water repelling properties, while amorphous glass phase has shown hydrophilic properties. If a 5,000MΩ insulation resistance is also regarded as baseline for a downhole electrical connector, the maximum operation temperature of α+β mixed phase sealing materials is around 240°C while that of the β-phase dominated sealing material can be up to 300°C. Furthermore, a thermo-mechanical modeling has been developed to quantify if a designed electrical connector has sufficient reliability in the hostile wellbore or downhole environments. The temperature- and pressure-dependent seal compression have suggested that the temperature-related safety factor should be chosen in the range from 2.0 to 5.0 while the pressure-related safety factor should be chosen in the range from 1.5 to 2.0 to ensure 10-20 years electrical connector downhole operating reliability. The qualification tests from prototyped electrical connectors, under 260°C/32,000PSI simulated water-fluid based conditions, have demonstrated that such high-strength sealing material sealed electrical connector could be integrated with logging while drilling (LWD) or/and measurement while drilling (MWD) tools for providing long-term reliable signal, data, and electrical power transmission services, regardless of a water-based or moisture-rich wellbore or/and downhole environment.

Experimental study the anti-inflammatory and osteo-regenerative qualities of the paste based on symphytum officinale tincture and calcium hydroxide

Replacement of the damaged bone remains actual and is far from being completely solved nowadays, despite its centuries-old history. The purpose of study was to investigate the anti-inflammatory and osteo-regenerative qualities of the paste based on Symphytum officinale tincture and calcium hydroxide in treatment on teeth with chronic granulating apical periodontitis in children and in an experiment on animals. Performed morphological and densitometric studies showed that remodeling of bone injury of the lower jaw in rats occurs almost equally in both experimental and control groups, and a paste based on Symphytum officinale tincture and calcium hydroxide also promotes bone regeneration at the defect site and stimulates osteosynthesis. Analysis of liver tissue, soft and hard tissues of the lower jaw in animals suggest that the proposed paste does not produce any toxic effect and provides significant anti-inflammatory properties. The gained result provide grounds to recommend the developed paste for therapeutic use in children as a temporary root canal sealing material in permanent teeth with granulating apical periodontitis.

Response Surface Method for Strength Analysis and Proportion Optimization of New Type Sealing Materials

The influence of the interaction among water-cement ratio, content of expansion agent, water reducing agent, and retarder on the compressive strength of new sealing material was studied. The Design-Expert software was used to design experiments, establish a quadratic polynomial regression model, draw response surface, and optimize parameters. The microstructure morphology of the sample is explored by a scanning electron microscope (hereinafter referred to as SEM). The research results show that the interaction between the water-cement ratio and expansion agent content is the most crucial factor affecting the compressive strength of the new sealing material. Under the optimal condition of 0.4% water reducing agent, 0.04% retarder, 0.8 water-cement ratio, and 8% expansion agent, the compressive strength of the sealing material cured for 3 d and 7 d is 39.247 MPa and 41.044 MPa, with the maximum absolute error of 1.71% and 2.81%, which proves the high accuracy of the model. The main hydration products of the new sealing material are ettringite and C-S-H gel, interlacing each other to form a dense structure, which contributes to the high strength of the new sealing material.

Method for designing the optimal sealing depth in methane drainage boreholes to realize efficient drainage

The purpose of underground methane drainage technology is to prevent methane disasters and enable the efficient use of coal mine methane (CMM), and the sealing depth is a key factor that affects the performance of underground methane drainage. In this work, the layouts of in-seam and crossing boreholes are considered to analyze the stress distribution and failure characteristics of roadway surrounding rock through a numerical simulation and field stress investigation to determine a reasonable sealing depth. The results show that the depths of the plastic and elastic zones in two experimental coal mines are 16 and 20 m respectively. Borehole sealing minimizes the air leakage through the fractures around the roadway when the sealing material covers the failure and plastic zones, and the field test results for CMM drainage at different sealing depths indicate that the CMM drainage efficiency increases with increasing sealing depth but does not change once the sealing depth exceeds the plastic zone. Moreover, sealing in the high-permeability roadway surrounding rock does not have a strong influence on the borehole sealing performance. Considering these findings, a new CMM drainage system for key sealing in the low-permeability zone was developed that is effective for improving the CMM drainage efficiency and prolonging the high-concentration CMM drainage period. The proposed approach offers a valuable quantitative analysis method for selecting the optimum sealing parameters for underground methane drainage, thereby improving considerably the drainage and utilization rates of CMM.