Strength Failure of CO₂ Injection Tubular Strings Considering CO₂ Phase Transition

Abstract

Compared with traditional injection tubular strings, the stresses on CO2 injection tubular strings are more complex. The results from field applications show that the phase transition of CO2 fluid in CO2 injection strings is an important factor in the calculation of temperature distribution and analysis of string mechanics. Therefore, we propose a strength analysis method for CO2 injection tubular strings that considers the CO2 phase transition. We selected four CO2 injection strings in an oil field in China as examples to evaluate their strength and safety. First, we established coupled differential equations for the temperature, pressure, and physical parameters of CO2 injection strings according to the theory of fluid flow and heat transfer. Then, we used an adaptive fuzzy neural network to construct the model for calculating the CO2 convection heat transfer coefficient and used this to obtain the high-precision convection heat transfer coefficients of tubular strings under conditions of CO2 flooding. We analyzed the injection-string deformations that resulted from the piston, spiral bending, expansion, friction and temperature effects according to the stress characteristics of the CO2 injection strings with packers under different working conditions. Finally, we performed mechanical analyses on the collapse resistance, internal pressure resistance, and tensile and triaxial stresses of the CO2 injection strings, and the results of these analyses provide a theoretical basis for the strength analysis of CO2 injection strings.

Keywords

• CO₂ flooding
• injection tubular strings
• temperature–pressure coupling
• stress analysis
• strength analysis