An Integrated Transport Model for Ball-Sealer Diversion in Vertical and Horizontal Wells

Li, Xiaohe; Chen, Zhongming; Chaudhary, Saleem; Novotny, Rudolf J.

doi:10.2118/96339-ms

Cited by 10 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 9 publications

(7 reference statements)

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“…Haider and Levenspiel (1989) provided explicit equations for the drag coefficient and terminal velocity. Li et al (2005) developed a ball-sealer simulator for dealing with transportation from the surface until seating on the perforations using a Lagrangian particle tracking method. The drag coefficient and borehole inclination angle affect the diverting behaviour of ball sealers (Li et al, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ball sealer tracking and seating of temporary plugging fracturing technology in the perforated casing of a horizontal well

Wan

Lü

Feng

et al. 2021

Energy Exploration & Exploitation

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Multistaged temporary plugging fracturing in horizontal wells is an emerging technology to promote uniform fracture propagation in tight reservoirs by injecting ball sealers to plug higher-flux perforations. The seating mechanism and transportation of ball sealers remain poorly understood. In this paper, the sensitivities of the ball sealer density, casing injection rate and perforation angle to the seating behaviors are studied. In a vertical wellbore section, a ball sealer accelerates very fast at the beginning of the dropping and reaches a stable state within a few seconds. The terminal velocity of a non-buoyant ball is greater than the fluid velocity, while the terminal velocity of a buoyant ball is less than the fluid velocity. In the horizontal wellbore section, the terminal velocity of a non-buoyant or buoyant ball is less than the fracturing fluid flowing velocity. The ball sealer density is a more critical parameter than the casing injection rate when a ball sealer diverts to a perforation hole. The casing injection rate is a more critical parameter than the ball sealer density when a ball sealer seats on a perforation hole. A buoyant ball sealer associated with a high injection rate of fracturing fluid is highly recommended to improve the seating efficiency.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ball sealer tracking and seating of temporary plugging fracturing technology in the perforated casing of a horizontal well

Wan

Lü

Feng

et al. 2021

Energy Exploration & Exploitation

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“…In order to obtain the rule for the movement of a ball, it is critical to determine the force acting on the ball [3][4]. H. XIAO et al [5] analyzed the forces of the ball in vertical wells to deduce the motion equations of the ball in the fracturing fluid, in which the average velocity of pipe flow instead of the actual fluid velocity was used in their hydraulic formula.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical Simulation for Ball Passing Capacity in Coiled Tubing

Zhang¹,

Zhang²,

Zhou³

et al. 2015

IJHT

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To prevent a ball becoming stuck in coiled tubing, it is critical to determine the flow velocity of fluid in a hydraulic drive ball-off. The computational fluid dynamics method and standard k-ε turbulence model were applied to simulate the flow within the tubing of a section of coiling block. By analyzing the flow around the ball, the force on the ball exerted by fluid was computed, and the movement trend of the ball at different locations obtained by steady simulation. With the dynamic grid technique, the movement of the ball was identified through transient simulation. The research showed that: the fluid force through static simulation is too large to be used for judging the ball's passing capacity in a section of coiling block. The ball moved around the coiling block with a minimum value of θ = 90°, revealing that the ball could easily reach the highest point if the minimal angular velocity of ball was greater than zero. Moreover, the conclusion that the ball could pass through the whole section of the coiling block if only it passed the first circle of the coil could be drawn. Furthermore, the critical flow velocity for different sized ball to pass through the coiled tubing increased monotonically with the increase in the ball diameter, and exhibited an approximate quadratic relation. When the curvature radius of the coiling block was 1.268 m and the diameter of the solid steel ball was in the range of (30 mm, 50 mm), the critical flow velocity was (2.30 m/s, 2.415 m/s). This study provides a useful basis for experiment design.

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“…Baylocq et al (1999) presented a design procedure for hydraulic fracturing treatment with nonbuoyant ball sealers. Li et al (2005) developed an integrated model to simulate a ball-sealer transport in a wellbore. They used a Lagrangian particle tracking methodology with which ball sealers are tracked from the surface until they seat on the perforations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the second category, the particle carries sufficient momentum to entrain and set into motion the surrounding fluid. For ball-sealer tracking, it is common to assume the first problem (Gabriel and Erbstoesser 1984;Li et al 2005). In this paper, we also assume ball sealers do not affect the flow field.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Experimental and Field Data Analyses of Ball-Sealer Diversion

Nozaki

Zhu

Hill

2013

SPE Production &Amp; Operations

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Diversion methods are routinely used in both matrix-acidizing and fracturing-stimulation treatments. The diversion methods are categorized into chemical diversion and mechanical diversion. In this study, we focus on one of the classical mechanical-diversion methods, ball sealers. Ball-sealer diversion is used in cased and perforated wells to divert stimulation fluids by temporarily blocking perforation holes in the casing with rubber-coated balls. This diversion method can be very effective, particularly with highrate injection, but no general methodology is available to design ball-sealer diversion, or to evaluate its effectiveness from the treating rate and pressure record.Although some design methodologies, such as the use of buoyant ball sealers to improve the ball-sealer efficiency, have been suggested, no model has been presented for determining how many balls seat on the perforations. In this paper, experimental data from an extensive series of full-scale flow experiments conducted by Bern (1993) and Bern and Lewis (1992a, b) were analyzed. We summarized several features of the ball sealers which are not presented in the literature. Also we used the procedure presented by Brown et al. (1963) to evaluate the statistical nature of the ball behavior in the experimental results. The experiments were designed to minimize the scatter of data. However, the seating process was found to still be statistical. We developed an empirical correlation for ball-sealer performance on the basis of the experiments.We also analyzed one field acid-fracturing treatment where ball sealers were used as a diversion method. The analyzed data were then compared to the experimental results. A similar trend in seating behavior was observed.

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An Integrated Transport Model for Ball-Sealer Diversion in Vertical and Horizontal Wells

Cited by 10 publications

References 9 publications

Ball sealer tracking and seating of temporary plugging fracturing technology in the perforated casing of a horizontal well

Ball sealer tracking and seating of temporary plugging fracturing technology in the perforated casing of a horizontal well

Numerical Simulation for Ball Passing Capacity in Coiled Tubing

Experimental and Field Data Analyses of Ball-Sealer Diversion

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