SPE 89518 Predicting Coiled-Tubing Failure Below Injector

Andrew S. Zheng and Sarmad Adnan, Schlumberger

Copyright 2004, Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc. This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE/ICoTA Coiled Tubing Conference and Exhibition held in Houston, Texas, U.S.A., 2324 March 2004. This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE Program Committee following review of information contained in a proposal submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper, as presented, have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Papers presented at SPE meetings are subject to publication review by Editorial Committees of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper for commercial purposes without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to a proposal of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The proposal must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper was presented. Write Librarian, SPE, P.O. Box 833836, Richardson, TX 75083-3836, U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435.

Abstract With the increased use of coiled tubing in high-pressure wells, the collapse of coiled tubing between the injector and the stripper has received much attention recently. In high-pressure wells, the failure of this tubing section (typically less than 2 ft in length) usually occurs under the combined loadings of axial compression and internal pressure. Previous analytical models to predict failure under such loading conditions have focused mostly on the buckling behavior of the short coiled-tubing section with minor modification of yield strength to account for the effect of internal pressure. Such approaches underestimate the effect of internal pressure on the collapse failure, especially for higher internal pressure. In this paper, a new analytical model is developed to predict the collapse of short coiled tubing under the combined loadings of axial compression and internal pressure. The analytical model first analyzes the buckling load of the short coiled-tubing section under axial compression only, and the burst pressure of the coiled tubing under internal pressure only, respectively. Then an interaction failure criterion is used to model the failure locus of the short coiled tubing under the combined loadings of axial compression and internal pressure. Experimental data are used to validate this new model. Introduction With the increased use of coiled tubing in high-pressure wells,1,2 the collapse of coiled tubing between the injector and the stripper has received much attention recently. To snub the coiled tubing into a high-pressure well, the injector has to exert a significant amount of compression to overcome the resistance from the wellhead pressure. Given the fact that the concerned section of coiled tubing between the injector and the stripper has an unsupported length of about 6 to 18 in., with each end supported by the injector chains and the stripper, respectively, the compression exerted by the injector could become high enough to cause catastrophic failure on this

coiled-tubing section. In fact, field experiences indicate that such failures indeed happen. However, failure of this kind is not addressed in API Recommended Practice RP5C7,3 which was released almost eight years ago. To mitigate the risk of this kind of collapse failure, many high-pressure coiled-tubing units have an anti-buckling guide installed above the stripper to shorten the length of the unsupported coiled tubing between the injector chain and the stripper. However, it is still desirable to develop a model to predict the failure envelope for the concerned tubing section under the combined loadings of axial compression and internal pressure. Considerable effort has been devoted to predicting the failure envelope of coiled tubing under the combined loading of axial force and pressure (both internal and external).4,5 Ref. 4 presented an approach to calculating the failure envelope for coiled tubing under the combined loadings of axial force and pressures. For coiled tubing under compression, the approach is more suitable for long coiled tubing inside a wellbore where helical buckling occurs prior to tubing failure. Ref. 5 presented a model to calculate the buckling load of the coiled tubing between the injector and the stripper. In this model, a short column buckling theory based on the Gordon-Rankine formula is used to calculate the buckling load. The model considers the effect of internal pressure by modifying the yield stress. Such a treatment obscures the interaction between the compression failure and burst failure modes and may not adequately account for the effect of internal pressure on failure when the pressure is high. Recent test data indicate that high internal pressure does have a significant effect on the collapse of a short coiled-tubing section, which prompted the development of this work. In this paper, an interaction failure criterion is developed to predict the failure of short coiled tubing under the combined loadings of axial compression and internal pressure. Experimental data from existing publications and from new testing are used to validate the model. In the following sections, a recent experiment on short coiled tubing under combined loading of axial compression and internal pressure is first presented, followed by the development and validation of an interaction model for collapse failure under such loading conditions.
P P

Experimental Description Tests were conducted to better understand the interaction of internal pressure and axial compression toward the collapse of short coiled tubing. The tests were performed on a universal testing machine. Fig. 1 shows the test setup. A total of 18 samples were tested. The test samples were made of HS80

www.petroman.ir

SPE 89518

coiled tubing with nominal OD of 1.75 in. and nominal thickness of 0.175 in. The samples have an actual yield stress of 86,700 psi. Table 1 shows the test matrix. Fig. 2 shows the samples after the test. Each sample was fitted with two end caps before it was installed on the testing machine. One of the end caps was ported to allow external pressure to be applied on the ID of the tubing sample. For testing without internal pressure, the compression load was increased gradually while the compression vs. displacement curve was being monitored. The test was stopped when the sample couldn't carry any further axial compression. For testing involving internal pressure, the sample was installed on the testing machine. The flow port at the end cap was then connected to a pressure source (water). Next, the internal pressure was gradually increased to the desired target according to Table 2. Axial compression was applied while the compression vs. displacement was being monitored. The pressure inside the sample was also monitored during the test. The test was stopped when the sample couldn't carry any further axial compression or it experienced sudden leakage of the internal pressure. Tests results are shown in Table 2. The failure load is denoted as the point of compression at which the load vs. displacement curve starts to deviate from the linear relationship, implying that plastic yield starts to occur. The last column in Table 2 is the axial compression the sample experienced at the moment of failure (axial force at failure = recorded failure load PAi). From the test results, it is evident that the internal pressure affects the maximum compression the tubing can take before failure occurs. As internal pressure increases, its effect becomes more pronounced. For example, at 4,500 psi, the internal pressure reduces the maximum compression by about 13%, while at 9,000 psi, the internal pressure reduces the maximum compression by about 32%. Clearly, a failure criterion is needed to account for the significant effect of internal pressure on the collapse load of the short coiledtubing section.
B B B

where F is the applied compression and Fc is the critical compression load beyond which the tubing loses its loadcarrying capacity. For a short column, the compression strength is best estimated by Gordon-Rankine formula 5, 6 as shown below:
P P

Fc =

Fy 1 + 2 2

(2)

where F y is the yield strength of the column, is a dimensionless constant to be determined experimentally, and is the slenderness ratio of the column. Failure of Tubing Under Internal Pressure. When the tubing is subjected to internal pressure only, the failure criterion can be expressed as
P =1 , Pb

(3)

where P is the applied internal pressure, and Pb is the burst pressure beyond which the tubing loses its pressure-carrying capacity. A conservative approach to estimating the burst pressure is to use the incipient yield pressure. The incipient yield pressure is determined when the inner wall of the tubing first experiences yielding. By using the incipient yield pressure, the burst pressure can be obtained as
Pb =

y
1+ + 2

(4)

where

2 ro + ri2 2 ro ri2

(5)

Failure Criterion for Tubing Under Combined Loadings The approach we use here is by way of synthesis. First, we look at the failure criteria for tubing under axial or internal pressure loading only. Then an interactive equation is proposed to predict failure under the combined loadings of axial force and internal pressure. It is reasonable to expect that if a failure criterion works for combined loadings, upon removal of one load (such as internal pressure) the criterion should reduce to the respective failure criterion (such as for axial loading) because the tubing is subjected only to a single load Failure of Short Tubing Under Axial Compression. When the short tubing is subjected to axial compression only, the failure criterion can be expressed as
F =1, Fc

Failure of Tubing Under Combined Loadings. When the tubing is subjected to combined loadings of axial force and internal pressure, the failure mechanism is a result of interaction between two failure modes; namely, buckling (axial) and burst failures. One requirement for the failure criterion of the combined loadings is that the failure criterion should reduce to the two extreme cases as expressed in Eqs. 1 and 3, respectively, when an individual load is applied. Failures of mechanical structure under various combined loading have generally been modeled with interactive equations.7, 8 Using the same approach, an empirical formula is proposed for the failure of short tubing under the combined loadings of axial force and internal pressure:
P P

F F c

P + P =1, b

(6)

(1)

where m and n are constants determined from experimental data. It is apparent that the above equation reduces to the two extreme cases as expressed in Eqs. 1 and 3. In summary, there are four constants ( Fc , Pb , m, n) in the interaction failure criterion (Eq. 6) to be determined from experimental data:

www.petroman.ir

SPE 89518

Fc is determined from Eq. 2 based on tests under axial force only. Pb is determined from Eq. 4. Parameters m and n are determined from tests under the combined loadings of axial force and internal pressure.
B B

Comparison With Experimental Data From the test data in Table 2, the buckling load is found to be Fc = 75,700 lbf, and the burst pressure is found to be Pb = P F vs. in 16,540 psi. The experimental data is plotted as Pb Fc Fig. 3. Apparently, the internal pressure has significant effect on the maximum axial force at the time of failure: the bigger the internal pressure, the smaller the maximum axial force at the time of tubing failure. From the experimental data, the constants m and n were determined by curve fitting as m = 1.75 and n = 1.25. The corresponding curve-fit function is also plotted in Fig. 3. This curve also shows the trend of the effect of internal pressure on the maximum axial force at the time of failure, and it converges to the two extreme cases: with F = 0, the corresponding burst pressure is P = Pb; with P = 0, the corresponding buckling force is F = Fc. Fig. 4 shows the model prediction (labeled as Model Prediction) for a short, straight section of coiled tubing 1.75*0.175 Grade 80 (section length 6 in.). Also plotted on the same figure are test data and a prediction (labeled as Predict Using Ref. 5) using the formula in Ref. 5, in which the effect of internal pressure is accounted for by adjusting the yield stress (Eq. 11 in Ref. 5). From these comparisons, it is apparent that the present model (as indicated in the curve Model Prediction in Fig. 4) gives a better prediction of the effect of internal pressure on the failure load of axial force.
B B B B B B B B

Conclusions Based on the discussions above, the following conclusions are drawn: Internal pressure has a significant effect on the maximum compression that a short coiled tubing can sustain prior to failure. The incipient yield criterion is used to determine the burst pressure of coiled tubing when it is subjected to internal pressure only. The Gordon-Rankine formula is used to determine the buckling load of short coiled tubing when it is subjected to axial compression only. An interactive equation is developed to predict the failure envelope of coiled tubing under the combined loadings of internal pressure and axial compression. This criterion converges to the failure criterion of the two extreme cases when the coiled tubing is subjected to internal pressure only, or axial compression only, respectively. The same interactive equation is used to calculate the failure envelope of coiled tubing below the injector under the combined loadings of internal pressure and actual compression, provided that the buckling load of the in-situ coiled tubing below the injector (with no internal pressure) is used in the interactive equation. Nomenclature
2 ri2 ) , L2, in 2 Ac = (ro
B B P P P P

Ai = ri2 ,
B B

L , in F = axial compressive force, mL/t2, lbf Fc = critical buckling load when tubing is subjected to axial load only, mL/t2, lbf Fy = Ac * y , mL/t2, lbf
P P P P P P P P P P P P

Discussions The test samples used in this paper were straight, new coiled tubing. It is known that the buckling load of a straight column is different from that of a crooked column.5 It has further been observed from testing with used coiled tubing that the dimensionless constant contained in the Gordon-Rankine formula is found to be 0.015 for straight coiled tubing and 0.03 for the used coiled tubing.5 It is expected that the change from straight coiled tubing to used coiled tubing only affects the calculation of buckling load Fc; the interactive equation between the axial force and internal pressure remains the same. Consequently, Eq. 6 is recommended to determine the failure condition of coiled tubing below the injector. Fig. 5 shows the comparison between the prediction from the present model and the full-scale injector test data from Ref. 5. The coiled tubing used in the test is 1.25 * 0.095, Grade 80. The open section length below the injector is 8 in. From this figure, the comparison between the prediction and full-scale test is fairly well. For illustrative purpose, Fig. 6 shows the failure envelope for a coiled tubing below the injector (1.5*0.134 Grade 90) with open lengths of 10, 8, and 6 in.
P P B B

m,n = dimensionless constant in the interactive equation P = internal pressure, m/Lt2, psi Pb = burst pressure when tubing is subjected to internal pressure only, m/Lt2, psi ro = CT OD radius, L, in.
P P

ri = CT ID radius, L, in.
formula

= dimensionless constant in Gordon Rankine

= tubing slenderness ratio y = CT yield strength, m/Lt2, psi

P P

Acknowledgement The authors thank the management of Schlumberger for permission to publish this paper. References
1. Zheng, A. and Larsen, H. A., High-Pressure Coiled Tubing String Design, paper SPE 54480 presented at the SPE/ICoTa Coiled Tubing Roundtable, Houston, Texas, 25-26 May, 1999. 2. Larsen, H. A. and Peterson, C., High-Pressure Coiled Tubing Instrumental in Deep Water Well Work, paper SPE 54504 presented at the SPE/ICoTa Coiled Tubing Roundtable, Houston, Texas, 25-26 May, 1999.

www.petroman.ir

SPE 89518

3. Recommended Practice for Coiled Tubing Operations in Oil and Gas Well Services, API Recommended Practice 5C7, First Edition, December 1996. 4. Zheng, A., "Improved Model for Collapse Pressure of Oval Coiled Tubing," paper SPE 55681, SPE Journal 4 (1), March, 1999, pp. 57-63. 5. Newman, K. and Aasen, J., "Catastrophic Buckling of Coiled Tubing in the Injector," paper SPE 46007 presented at the SPE/ICoTa Coiled Tubing Roundtable, Houston, Texas, 15-16 April, 1998. 6. Timoshenko, S., Strength of Materials Part 1, Third Edition, Krieger Publishing Company, 1958. 7. Bai, Y., Igland, R. and Moan, T., "Tube Collapse Under Combined Pressure, Tension and Bending Loads," International Journal of Offshore and Polar Engineering, Vol. 3, No. 2, June 1993. 8. Chen, W. F. and Lui, E. M., Structural Stability Theory and Implementation, Elsevier, 1987.

15 16 17 18

1.754 1.755 1.754 1.753

0.174 0.174 0.174 0.172

6.09 10.093 10.103 10.092

9,000 9,000 9,000 9,000

64,000 48,000 64,000 64,800

50,026 50,826 50,026 50,760

Metric Conversion Factors in 2.54 E + 00 = cm lbf 4.448 222 E + 00 = N psi 6.894 757 E + 00 = kPa Table 1Test Matrix
OD (in.) Thick -ness (in.) 1.75 1.75 0.175 0.175 6 10 Length (in.) Internal Tests 0 psi 3 3 Pressure/Number 4,500ps i 3 3 of

9,000ps i 3 3 Fig. 1Test Setup

Table 2Test Results

Te st No. OD (in.) Thickness (in.) Length (in.) Pressure (psi) Failure Load (lbf) Axial Force at Failure (lbf) 75,200 75,200 75,200 75,000 74,800 76,800 65,860 64,250 65,083 63,606 64,209 65,052 51,066 51,219 Fig. 2Samples After Test

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

1.752 1.753 1.752 1.752 1.753 1.753 1.752 1.752 1.752 1.755 1.752 1.752 1.752 1.754

0.176 0.176 0.175 0.176 0.174 0.175 0.175 0.175 0.176 0.174 0.173 0.173 0.174 0.174

6.104 6.078 6.098 10.113 10.099 10.101 6.078 6.081 6.074 10.096 10.053 10.106 6.068 6.089

0 0 0 0 0 0 4,500 4,500 4,500 4,500 4,500 4,500 9,000 9,000

75,200 75,200 75,200 75,000 74,800 76,800 72,800 71,200 72,000 70,600 71,200 72,000 65,000 65,200

www.petroman.ir

SPE 89518

12,000

0.8

8,000 P/Pb P (psi)

CURVE-FIT TEST DATA

0.6

0.4

4,000

0.2

MODEL PREDICTION TEST DATA FROM REF. 5

0 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1

0 0 6,000 F/Fc 12,000 F (lbf) 18,000 24,000

Fig. 3Failure Envelope of Straight Coiled Tubing Under Combined Loadings of Axial Force and Internal Pressure

Fig. 5 Comparison of Prediction vs. Injector Test Data From Ref. 5 for 1.25*0.095 Grade 80 Coiled Tubing (Open Length 8 in.)

20,000
16,000

16,000
12,000

Pi (psi)

12,000 P (psi)
MODEL PREDICTION PREDICT USING REF. 5 TEST DATA

8,000

8,000

4,000

4,000

L= 10in. L= 8in. L= 6in.

0 0 40,000 Fa (lbs) 80,000

0
0 25,000 50,000

F (lbf)
Fig. 6Prediction of Coiled Tubing Failure Envelope for 1.5*0.134 Grade 90, Open Length L = 10, 8, and 6 in.

Fig. 4Comparison of Model Prediction and Test Data for 1.75*0.175 Grade 80 Straight Section Length 6 in.

www.petroman.ir