Experimental and Modeling Approach to Investigate the Influence of Temperature on Surge and Swab Pressures in Water-Based Drilling Muds

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors
Mohsen Mombeini
Mohammad Torkaman
Milad Mohammareh Nezhad Rabieh
Morteza Moradi
Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran
10.22055/jacm.2026.48857.5554
Abstract
One of the major concerns of drilling a high-temperature well is the problem of surge and swab pressures that are highly affected by temperature changes. Still, there has been no comprehensive try to investigate the effect of temperature on these phenomena. So, in this study, a set-up device is designed and built to measure the surge and swab pressures at different conditions. The experimental results indicate that a temperature increment from 25 to 85°C could cause a decline in surge and swab pressures by 2.8 and 2.86% respectively. Also, the findings reveal that increasing the pipe diameter has a greater impact on increasing the intensity of these phenomena than elevating the pipe tripping speed. In the next step, a mathematical model is used to scrutinize the action mechanisms of different parameters and also to find the governing factors on surge and swab pressures. The modeling outputs show a validation of 97% with experimental results. Also, the modeling indicates that an increment in pipe diameter and tripping speed cause higher turbulence of the flow thus leading to more inaccuracy of the model predictions (up to 94% validation for higher tripping speeds and 90% for larger pipe diameters).
Keywords
Accumulative pressure
Surge pressure
Swab pressure
Tripping operation
Modeling
Subjects

Publisher’s Note Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Journal of Applied and Computational Mechanics

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Available Online from 29 May 2026