Publications

“Practical Application Of Pressure And Temperature Dependent Viscosity Calculations In Well Cementing Simulations”
N. C. Flamant and S. Pelipenko
Proceedings of the ASME 2022 41st International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering, OMAE2022-81120.
Presented at the OMAE2022 in Hamburg, Germany, June 5-10, 2022.

Description of the method for constructing a Pressure and Temperature dependent rheological model from Couette rheometer readings. Detection and mitigation of wall slip and other outlier readings using Cook's distance method. Construction of an interpolated rheology model suitable for use in cementing hydraulic and displacement simulators – taking care to avoid amplification of measurement errors and achieving high computational speed for repeated calculations with varying pressure and temperature.
 
"Real Time Cementing Hydraulics Simulations Bring Risk Down"
S. Pelipenko, N. C. Flamant, and S. C. Impey. 
Proceedings of the ASME 2019 38th International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering, OMAE2019-95100.
Presented at the OMAE2019 Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, UK, June 9 – 14, 2019.

An outline of the physical model and implementation of a real-time hydraulic simulator to support well cementing operations. Summary of the performance challenges and solutions implemented. A case study of application on the simulator to detect and characterize losses in a real-life field case. 

 
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"On steady state displacements in primary cementing of an oil well"
S. Pelipenko and I.A.Frigaard. Journal of Engineering Mathematics, 2004, 48(1), pp 1-26.

Here we define the displacement model in its variational form and show the existence and uniqueness of the solution. We determine what function space this weak solution lies in and show the equivalence of concentration and interface-tracking formulations. We derive analytic expressions for steady-state interfaces for concentric annuli and perturbation solutions for annuli with small eccentricities. To conclude, we provide some illustrative results such as the stream function in moving frame of reference and variations in steady state interface shape with displacement parameters.

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 "Effective and Ineffective Strategies for Mud Removal and Cement Slurry Design"
I.A. Frigaard and S. Pelipenko. SPE 80999. Presented at the SPE Latin American and Caribbean Petroleum Engineering Conference, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, West Indies, 27-30 April 2003.

We present interface-tracking formulation of the 2-D annular displacement model and steady-state interface shape results for concentric and small eccentricity annuli.

 
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 "Two-dimensional computational simulation of eccentric annular cementing displacements"
S. Pelipenko and I.A.Frigaard. IMA Journal of Applied Mathematics, December 2004, 64(6).

We present a numerical approach that for the first time allows us to solve the fully 2-D eccentric annular non-Newtonian fluid displacement problem. Previously used numerical solutions required additional regularisation and approximations to be made. We examine the features of the algorithm and provide some simulation results such as steady-state interface shapes.

 
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 "Visco-plastic fluid displacements in near-vertical narrow eccentric annuli: prediction of travelling wave solutions and interface instability"
S. Pelipenko and I.A.Frigaard. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Volume 520, 10 December 2004, pp. 343-377.


Starting with an interface-tracking model for a 2D annular displacement flow, a derivation of a simple criterion for steady annular fluid displacement is presented. This allows an analysis of parameter dependence in greater detail. The criterion is also compared with current industrial cementing rule-based systems.