Drilling Fluid Weight Material Sedimentation—Sedimentation of Suspensions

Abstract

The authors describe tests studying sedimentation kinetics for various suspensions used in the oil well drilling industry. The tests are run using equipment that allows study of the sedimentation process as a function of temperature, drill string rotation, and fluid composition. The equipment used, described in detail by T. Omland et al. (2009) of this series of two papers, allows comparison studies to detect the effects from these operational elements. The study involves use of fluids commonly used in the oil field to link these laboratory experiments to real applications.

Keywords:

• drill string rotation
• drilling fluids
• fluid composition
• particle sedimentation
• sag
• sag testing technique
• settling
• suspensions
• temperature
• weighting material