Development of Experimental Setup to Evaluate Drilling Fluid's Characteristic Using Tomography Method

This report covers the application of drilling fluids and tomography method in the drilling
operation. The objectives of the project are to study the characteristics of drilling fluid
and to develop new possible testing procedure to evaluate drilling fluid's properties. The
literature review describes the drilling fluid additive functions and, current alternatives
used focusing on lost circulation and fracture analysis. This report focuses on the Lost
Circulation Material (LCM) in drilling fluid. It also confers the methodologies for LCM
to resolve severe lost circulation problems and designing the drilling fluid samples, the
drilling fluid densities, the rheological tests and the filtration performance volume tests.
Tests have been conducted in accordance with the API 13-B and the related equipments
are mixer, mud balance, viscometer and high temperature high pressure (HTHP) filters
press. Properties measured through this experiment are density, plastic viscosity, yield
point and I 0-second and I 0-minute gel strength. Author has tried to use the equipment
available in the Petroleum Department and found out that HTHP filter press equipment
for filtration study is not complete for the purpose of evaluating fihration properties of
the drilling fluid. The fracture study is included to review the condition of the wellbore
when the fracture happen and the solution taken to solve the problem. The study
discovered that there is a need to have a new type of testing method in determining the
effectiveness of LCM drilling fluid. A experimental rig has been designed and fubricated
to evaluate drilling fluid but later discovered that a lot of assumptions have to be made
making the rig condition too ideal and unrealistic. The discussion part explained on the
results from the calibration and online measurement of the tomography sensor. The
preliminary results shows positive signs of correlation between the properties. The
conclusion chapter consists of the overall conclusions and recommendations regarding
the project. There are a lot more analysis and procedures that can be done in the future to
improve the resu Its.