Study on helical post-buckling of motional coiled tubing in horizontal wells
Abstract Coiled tubing is widely used in oil and gas operations. However, the long coiled tubing may undergo sinusoidal or helical buckling deformations, and even lock-up, leading to property damage and serious accidents. To study boundary conditions effects on helical post-buckling of coiled tubing...
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
SpringerOpen
2025-05-01
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| Series: | Journal of Petroleum Exploration and Production Technology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s13202-025-02009-4 |
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| Summary: | Abstract Coiled tubing is widely used in oil and gas operations. However, the long coiled tubing may undergo sinusoidal or helical buckling deformations, and even lock-up, leading to property damage and serious accidents. To study boundary conditions effects on helical post-buckling of coiled tubing in horizontal wellbores, firstly, the mathematical model containing dynamic terms for nonlinear buckling deformation of coiled tubing in horizontal wells is established in this paper. Secondly, using the improved perturbation method, the third-order perturbation solution of the relationship between pitch and time during helical post-buckling of coiled tubing in horizontal wells is obtained, and the expression of the contact force between coiled tubing and wellbore wall with the time terms is derived. Finally, the effects of gravity, the change velocity of the pitch, and the axial load on the contact force are analyzed separately. The results show that when considering the effect of gravity, the axial internal stress in each micro-element segment of coiled tubing undergoing helical post-buckling exhibits periodic variation. The greater the compression velocity, the greater the contact force between coiled tubing and the wellbore wall. The discriminative conditions for the occurrence of lock-up in coiled tubing undergoing helical post-buckling are proposed, and increasing the axial load can delay the occurrence of lock-up. The mathematical model established in this paper innovatively incorporates time-dependent dynamics, and breaking through the limitations of the traditional quasi-static assumptions of buckling analysis. This model provides a new method and theoretical basis for further study of coiled tubing helical post-buckling process. |
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| ISSN: | 2190-0558 2190-0566 |