Evaluation of Dry Sieving Method in Particle Size Analysis for Sand Control Applications

The knowledge of grain / particle size distribution is very crucial in designing optimum liner openings, screens or gravel pack sizes. Sieve analysis, a simple method of grain size measurement, generally used to describe the characterizations of formation sand. However, this practice is questionable since it relies solely on the measurement of the grain / particle without taking into account some factors that affect the sand production. Dry sieving method may give a true weight distribution of sand particles, however, the effect of fluid flow in hydrocarbon production was found not catered.
Evaluation of dry sieving method in particle size analysis for sand control applications is a project to discover the limitations of dry sieving technique in determining the grain/particle size distribution of the formation sand. In this project, a comprehensive study on the factors that influenced the tendency of sand production in oil and gas wells were done. An in-depth understanding of dry sieving procedures and the basic concept of sand particle measurements also have been covered in order to understand how dry sieving method works. A laboratory works have been conducted to critically observe the overall procedure of this method.With the thorough understanding of its procedure, the limitations of dry sieving method has been outlined. Dry sieving analysis is not a suitable method to be used in determining sand particle size distribution for wells that is having major sand sizes which is smaller than 0.044mm. In addition, this method is also not catering any fluid flow effect throughout its analysis. However, regardless of these limitations, dry sieving method is still desirable in determining the particle sand distribution because of its easiness and cheaper as compared to other method. For future studies, a comparative study is suggested to be done to strengthen the result and findings of this project. There are two (2) suggestion on how to conduct the comparative study. First is by comparing dry sieving method results with another particle size distribution method results. Another suggestion is to compare dry sieving method to mathematical modelling result.