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Article history: Sulfide stress corrosion cracking (SSC) is the major failure form for casing string in sour gas wells con-
Received 20 July 2014 tained H2S. The equivalent tri-axial stress of casing string should be controlled below the threshold stress
Received in revised form of SSC occurrence to minimize SSC initiation and improve the integrity and service life of casing. The
17 August 2014
principles and methods regarding anti-SSC casing design are presented and two methods commonly
Accepted 18 August 2014
Available online 7 September 2014
used for anti-SSC casing design are comprehensively discussed. The accurate strength check formulae for
burst and collapse design are derived under tri-axial stress condition. The design method described in
this paper can be used to guide casing design in sour environment contained H2S.
Keywords:
Sour gas well
© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
SSC
Threshold stress
Casing design
Strength check
1. Introduction tensile stress. SSC will not occur when external stress s below
critical threshold stress sth. Threshold stress sth is one of the
With the continuous improvement of exploration and pro- quantitative parameters to evaluate the sensitivity of SSC, a smaller
duction technology, more and more sour gas reservoirs were put sth demonstrates that the test coupon is more sensitive to SSC.
into production. The casing string integrity in sour gas wells is a Research on the relationship between tensile stress and SSC in-
challenge due to the particularity of sour gas reservoirs, it re- dicates that different metal material in different sour environment
quires casing material to satisfy reservoir fluid properties. The has various SSC threshold stress. Generally speaking, the threshold
sour gas environment contained H2S can induce casing strength stress of all tested material is less than the specified minimum yield
degradation and SSC will initiate when stress reach a certain stress (SMYS) of this material. For a designated material, its
value. Stress should be reduced to a minimum level and thick threshold stress can be experimentally determined with the
wall casing with low grade should be selected for anti-SSC simulated actual service conditions (Yamamoto et al., 2004; Chu
casing design. Materials that are resistive to SSC should be et al., 1999; Leyer et al., 2002). But the attempt to establish a
selected, there are many references to discuss this topic (Ke and threshold stress value for casing SSC by laboratory testing is not
Boles, 2004; Chandler et al., 2002; IRP, 2004). The purpose of reliable because casing in the hole encounter complex, multi-axial
this paper is to clarify the design method to control or mitigate stresses resulting from down hole environment, whereas labora-
SSC. tory testing is generally uni-axial tension applied by a test machine.
For buried pipelines, some industry codes recommend the pipe-
2. Particularities of casing design for mitigating SSC lines threshold stress can operate to stresses up to 72e80% SMYS
(McLamb et al., 2002). Currently, there are no relating codes for
Sulfide stress corrosion cracking (SSC) is the major failure form casing, but the above mentioned codes can be adopted as a
for casing string in sour gas wells contained H2S. Tensile stress and reference.
certain sour corrosive environment can induce SSC. It is a necessary The function of sth must be taken into account for casing design
condition for SSC occurrence that casing body experiences certain mitigating SSC to minimize SSC occurrence and improve the
integrity and service life of casing. Jones (1996) pointed out that the
tensile stress in key component of test specimen should be limited
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ86 13618351024. to a low value thus giving added assurance of resistance to sulfide
E-mail address: longxycq@163.com (X. Long). stress-cracking. Ikeda (1992) demonstrated that the stress on
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jngse.2014.08.015
1875-5100/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
X. Long et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 21 (2014) 270e274 271
The tri-axial stress level on the casing body and coupling Fig. 1. Tri-axial stress ellipse for casing design.
should be controlled smaller than the threshold stress of casings
under all possible well situations. Casing design must maintain
the stress level below the critical level (threshold stress) to feq ¼ 1, the casing string is defined to be failing, a higher feq value
minimize the possibilities of SSC (Standard TM-01-77 NACE, indicates a higher safety margin.
1977). The threshold stress (sth) of casing preventing SSC is
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
recommended to be about 72e80% SMYS based on relevant in- 1
dustry standards.
seq ¼ pffiffiffi ðsr st Þ2 þ ðsr sa Þ2 þ ðsa st Þ2 (2)
2
3.2. Tri-axial equivalent design factor value Substituting Equation (1) into (2), the tri-axial equivalent stress
factor at the inside pipe wall becomes:
Canada Industry Recommended Practice (IRP) suggests the 8 sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi91
< 1
safety factor of burst pressure and collapse pressure in high sour st sr 2 sr sa 2 sa st 2 =
environment should increase from the standard 1.0 to 1.25, and feq ¼ pffiffiffi þ þ
: 2 sth sth sth sth sth sth ;
the tensile strength safety factor should more than 1.60 (IRP,
2004). (3)
The axial tension (sa) in the feq expression includes axial stress
4. Casing design method for mitigating SSC in the initial hanging status, axial stress change due to fluid density
change, pressure change, temperature change etc.
Of the many approaches to casing design that have been
developed over the years, most are based on the concept of
maximum load. The internal pressure design method and tension
stress design method used for mitigating SSC casing design both 4.2. The characteristic of tri-axial equivalent stress ellipse
belong to the maximum load method. There is a great difference
between the conventional casing design procedure and mitigating For cased hole, the external and internal pressure can cause axial
SSC casing design procedure. In the conventional casing design, overload stress. The effect of axial stress on radial stress and
casing is selected according to required internal pressure, and then circumferential stress can be expressed as follow:
conduct casing strength design based on effective collapse stress qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1
and tensile stress to meet the prescribed design factors. However, in sth ¼ pffiffiffi ðsr st Þ2 þ ðsr sa Þ2 þ ðsa st Þ2
mitigating SSC casing design, the allowable maximum tension in 2
casing string should be checked for the specific casing determined
by the internal pressure requirement first of all. Then conduct the Above equation can be rewritten as:
following steps with the conventional casing design method. It
means one more extra precondition added in mitigating SSC casing ðst sr Þ2 ðsa sr Þðst sr Þ þ ðsa sr Þ2 ¼ s2th (4)
design method.
With external pressure po and internal pressure pi, the radial stress
and circumferential stress are
4.1. The definition of tri-axial equivalent factor
ri2 ro2 po pi ri2 pi ro2 po
As the basic principle for mitigating SSC casing design required, sr ¼ þ (5)
tri-axial equivalent factor method is taken to control the stress in ro2 ri2 r2 ro2 ri2
casing string below the threshold stress for preventing SSC. The tri-
axial equivalent factor defines as: r 2 r 2 po pi ri2 pi ro2 po
st ¼ 2 i o 2 þ (6)
sth ro ri r2 ro2 ri2
feq ¼ (1)
seq
With the combined action of external pressure and internal
feq represents the ratio of allowable stress to the actual working pressure, the stress at the inside pipe wall will reach to the
stress. The allowable stress is taken as threshold stress of the pipe, maximum level. If r ¼ ri, then sr ¼ pi, substituting it into equa-
while the actual working stress is the equivalent stress seq. When tion (4), yields:
272 X. Long et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 21 (2014) 270e274
sth
ðpi Þmax ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi (9)
feq a2 þ a þ 1 4.3.2.2. Axial stress caused by temperature change e ðsa ÞT .
After casing installation, the temperature of casing may change due
where to the continuous drilling operation or production operation. The
free hanging casing will expand or contract with the change of
ro2 þ ðri Þ2 temperature. For ends fixed well, especially in steam injection pro-
a¼ (10) duction well, the axial tension stress or compression stress will vary
ro2 ðri Þ2
due to dramatic temperature variation (Maruyama et al., 1990).
According to Hook law, the axial stress ðsa ÞT induced by tem-
After the maximum internal pressure for a particular casing is
perature change can be presented as:
gained, the maximum tension with that maximum internal pres-
sure which will satisfy the prescribed safety factor must be deter- ðsa ÞT ¼ Eε (18)
mined. This tension was represented as Point B in Fig. 1. The
maximum tension can be expressed by the following l ðl þ lgDTÞ
ε¼ (19)
l þ lgDT
ðsa Þmax ¼ ðpi Þmax ða 1Þ (11)
lgDT can be ignored as it is a minor amount compared with l, thus
Equation (11) is derived by setting pi ¼ ðpi Þmax , po ¼ 0 in Lame
equation (19) becomes:
equation and solving the von Mises equation for sa.
After the allowable maximum axial stress is determined, com- ε ¼ gDT (20)
bined the axial stress change due to pressure change, bending
stress, temperature change, the maximum allowable axial load is or
found and then the allowable setting depth for specified casing can
ðsa ÞT ¼ EgDt (21)
be obtained.
4.3.2. Axial stress in casing string 4.3.2.3. Bending stress. Casing string will subject to bending stress
The actual loads loaded on down hole casing string include axial in the severe dogleg section or deflecting section after the casing
stress, bending stress, the axial stress caused by the change of having been installed. Generally, bending stress is tension stress
X. Long et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 21 (2014) 270e274 273
and has important influence in casing design for anti-SSC. The 5. Accurate check for tri-axial equivalent design parameters
bending stress in the crooked hole is given as (Drilling Manual,
1990): By determining tri-axial equivalent design factor, casing grade,
wall thickness and setting depth can be established to control the
p$E$do $K$L$C maximum stress in pipe body below the critical value and meet the
ðsa Þb ¼ (22)
4320 106 tanhð0:3937KLÞ casing design requirements in sour gas wells. To simplify the design
procedure and calculation, the Lame equations and von Mises
equation are solved for (1) zero burst pressure inside pipe for
4.3.3. Determination of allowable casing axial load
collapse and (2) zero outside collapse pressure for burst. The design
The allowable casing axial stress can be expressed as follow after
result is obtained by adding the inside or outside pressure
taking all possible axial stress into account while casing in hole.
respectively, but actually the internal or external pressure and axial
ðsa Þallowable ¼ ðsa Þmax ðsa Þp ðsa ÞT ðsa Þb (23) stress have close relationship with burst and collapse properties.
Generally, this relationship can be formulated as (Aasen and
The casing allowable tensile load can be calculated as: Aadnoy, 2007):
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
3 strain of a pipe body, m/m
pi ð2b 1Þ sa þ 4s2th 3ðpi þ sa Þ2
pcollapse ¼ (35) lgDT change of casing length
2b g thermal expansion factor
DT temperature difference, C
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
do casing outer diameter, m
bpo ð2b1Þþsa ðb2Þþ 4s2th b2 bþ1 3b2 ðpo þsa Þ2 L half p
length between casing couplings, cm,
pburst ¼ ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
K ¼ 64:5158T=ðEIÞ
2 b2 bþ1
T casing weight below crooked hole, N
I inertia moment of casing, cm4, I ¼ 64 p ðd4 d4 Þ
(36) o i
C borehole curvature, /30.48 m
The theory presented so far for burst and collapse is based on
ðsa Þallowable allowable casing axial stress, MPa
the assumption that the pipe fails by yielding at the inner wall. The
Ao outer cross section area of casing, m2
equations can be utilized for final check to guarantee burst pressure
Ai inner cross section area of casing, m2
and collapse pressure satisfying predetermined design
ðFa Þallowable casing allowable tensile load
requirements.
pcollapse collapse pressure, MPa
pburst burst pressure, MPa
6. Conclusions
b geometry factor (Eq. (27))
x dimensionless parameter (Eq. (31))
(1) Controlling the tri-axial equivalent stress in casing below the
y dimensionless parameter (Eq. (32))
threshold stress for SSC occurrence is the basic principle and
requirement for anti-SSC casing design.
(2) Additional axial stress must be considered for determining References
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