An investigation of sodium polyacrylate effect on water based drilling fluid

In the Oil and Natural Gas sector, one of the most important problems encountered during drilling applications is the low efficiency of the drilling fluid. Water-based drilling muds are preferred more than other petroleum-based and synthetic-based drilling muds because they are economical and have little damage to the environment. Various additives are added to the mud mixture in order to increase the efficiency of water-based drilling mud. In this thesis, the usability of sodium polyacrylate as an additive in drilling mud was investigated. All experiments were carriedout at room temperature. For this purpose, water-based drilling mud containing different amounts of bentonite (4%, 5%, 6%, 7%, 8%, 9% and 10%) was prepared and 1% sodium polyacrylate was added to the bentonite used. Then, the prepared drilling muds were aged for 16 hours and 24 hours and how sodium polyacrylate affected the rheological and filtration (liquidloss) properties of the drilling mud was investigated. Experimental studies were carried out according to the API 13A standard, and the test results obtained were analyzed and interpreted according to the API 13B-1 standard. As a result of the experiments, an increase is observed in rheological parameters (apparent viscosity, plastic viscosity, pourpoint, gel strength) with the addition of sodium polyacrylate under the same aging times, but this increase is due to high bentonite concentration (6%, 7%, 8%, 9%, 10%). and it shows that it is much more pronounced with increasing sodium polyacrylate amount. On the other hand, the experimental results showed that the aging time provided an improvement on the filtration. Another remarkable observation in water loss is that the water loss reduction efficiency of sodium polyacrylate is much better at high bentonite concentration (7%, 8%, 9%, 10%) in both 16 hours aging and 24 hours aging periods. It has been concluded that sodium polyacrylate can be used as a promising additive in drilling mud with its appropriate combination.