SOME PROBLEMS OF FLUID MECHANICS IN WELL CEMENTING IN PETROLEUM ENGINEERING

Well cementing is an important operation in theconstruction of any oil well. After a section of the steel casing isinserted into the hole, a sequence of cement slurry is pumped down theinside of the tubing and coming back up through the annular gap, and thenallowed to settle in the annulus. Several fluid mechanics problems arediscussed in the present paper, such as, how to determine the mechanicalmodels for describing rheological behavior of cementing slurry at hightemperature and high pressure, the influences of eccentricities on slurryflow, and the stability of the interface between slurry and spacer. This paper briefly reviews the latestinvestigations on fluid mechanics problems, and some importantdirections for future researches are pointed out.