The Innovations And Application Of A Novel Vegetable-Gum Drilling Fluid

This paper is based on the program of the Innovations of Novel Vegetable-Gum Drilling Fluids, one of the Tenth Five-Year Scientific Programs by the State Power Corporation in 2003. Aiming at finding out a novel vegetable-gum drilling fluid suitable for boring and coring in the geologically loose sandy pebble layers, this program can make up for the disadvantages of currently used drilling fluids, which are caused by the serious shortages of some natural shrubs, such as SM.As one of the most important discussions in this paper, the theoretic discourse of vegetable-gum drilling fluids includes the following information: analyzing the physical and chemical properties of vegetable gums to show their workability and superiority in geological drilling materials; synthetic high polymers and base modifiers, or coupling agents, which are indispensable for vegetable-gum drilling fluids, can optimize their behaviours. The modifying mechanism of these constituents is also presented as the references for the coming laboratory tests.The innovations of this novel vegetable-gum drilling fluid started with the investigations of vegetable-gums, synthetic high polymers, base modifiers, and coupling agents. Through laboratory tests, we make sure that the constituents of this drilling fluid, named KL Vegetable-Gum Drilling Fluid by us, should consist of KL gum, hyper-PHP (H-PHP), and NaOH, and by means of mathematical orthogonal tests, we got its optical compositions, and carried out laboratory tests regarding its behaviours.With regard to its field drilling applications in the geologically loose sandy pebble layers, KL Vegetable-Gum Drilling Fluid showed itself with excellent rheological behaviours in its abilities of lubrication, lost circulation, suspension and removal of debris, anti-shear shinning, and high coring rates, which satisfactorily meet the demands of geological boring in the dam foundation of Huangjin Ping Hydroelectrical Power Plant.So, as a conclusion, KL Vegetable-Gum Drilling Fluid turned out to be a great success with superb performances in both laboratory tests and field applications, and can be expected a wide use in the future drilling operations.However, it still needs further studies in both theory and application, so several suggestions regarding these studies are put forward at the end of this paper, as well.