Aluminum Alloy Pipe Design and Mechanical Property Analysis

Abstract

Since the pipes of aluminum alloy have many advantages over traditional carbon steel pipes, the aluminum alloy pipes are gaining their shares in applications in petroleum development. Considering the complexity of the structure of deep and ultra-deep well, the laboratory experimental studies were conducted on the mechanical property, such as tensile strength, and elastic modulus of the steel pipe, aluminum pipe and titanium alloy pipe. A theoretical relationship between aluminum alloy pipe diameter, wall thickness, and tensile strength was established. For field study, a 7000 m deep well in Tarim oilfield was carried on the detailed design, and the results showed that the aluminum alloy pipe down to 7000 m had a safety factor of hook load greater than 1.94, and the safety coefficient of torque value was greater than 1.62. At the same time, the design requirements could be well met; when aluminum pipe was adopted to improve the design, the maximum tension of drill pipe was much bigger than that of a steel pipe’s maximum permissible stress as the steel pipe’s mechanical properties could not meet the requirement of drill pipe string design.