JOURNAL OF ROCK MECHANICS

JOURNAL OF ROCK MECHANICS

The Effect of Confining Pressure on the Sand Production in Hydrocarbon Reservoirs by Using Discrete Element Method

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Mostafa Seyed Atashi
Kamran Goshtasbi
Rouhollah Basirat
Faculty of Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract
Iran has the world's largest gas reserves and the world's fourth largest oil reserves, most of which are located in sandstone reservoirs. In Iran, fields such as Mansouri, Ahvaz, and Rag Sefid have more problems in terms of sand production than other reservoirs, which is why their study is important.
The problem of sand production, as one of the fundamental challenges, has attracted the attention of many researchers for many years, and in this regard, many techniques have entered the market and have had a significant evolutionary growth. Using these methods, the effect of various parameters on sand production is examined. One of the effective parameters is the confining pressure, or in other words, the lateral pressure of the earth on sand production. In this article, the effect of this parameter is examined using the discrete component method in PFC3D software. The results showed that sand production increases with increasing confining stress.
Keywords
Sand production
Discrete element method
Confining pressure
PFC3D software
Fluid flow
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JOURNAL OF ROCK MECHANICS
Volume 1, Issue 1
Spring 2017
Pages 35-42