Study of the Effect of the Drill Pipe Planetary Motion on Pressure Loss Gradient of Two-Phase Flow at HPHT Conditions

It is well known that the type of drill pipe motion has an important effect on the cuttings transportation process and pressure loss gradient in the annular space, in particular for horizontal and deviated wells. For that, it is needed to understand more about the effect of planetary motion on the pressure loss gradient during circulation of the drilling mud in the bottom hole of explored wells. In the present paper, the influence of the drill pipe planetary motion on the pressure loss gradient of a mixture (Ostwald-de Waele fluid with solid particles) in a turbulent regime during its circulation through an annular space is evaluated for different drilling parameters including eccentricity, rate of penetration, and solid particles size. In addition, the effect of drill pipe planetary motion for various conditions of temperature and pressure is evaluated for two types of muds water-based and oil-based. The numerical analysis revealed that an angular speed of 120 rpm of planetary motion can be considered as an optimal value in terms of pressure loss gradient. In addition, it was observed that the effect of the planetary motion on the pressure loss gradient depends mainly on the fluid temperature for both types of mud.