Study on sealing performance and anti-extrusion performance of expansion metal packer

Abstract

The development prospect of ultra-deep horizontal wells is huge, but the increasing demand for large displacement volume fracturing puts forward higher requirements for the sealing performance and anti-extrusion performance of packers. Therefore, in this paper, we introduce an expandable metal packer that can meet the above requirements, establish a finite element model of the expandable metal packer, and carry out mechanical tensile tests of Al alloy, DSS and 316L materials. The effects of different metal materials, groove depth, number of metal rings, distance between metal rings and fixed ends, setting pressure and expansion rate on its sealing and anti-extrusion performance were analyzed. The results show that the performance of 316L metal packer is better than that of Al alloy packer and DSS metal packer. When the number of metal rings, groove depth and setting pressure increase and the expansion rate decreases, the sealing performance of the metal packer increases. The number of metal rings, the distance between the metal ring and the fixed end increase, and the groove depth and expansion rate decrease, so that the anti-extrusion performance of the metal packer is improved. The research results of this paper provide some theoretical guidance and research ideas for the preliminary selection and design of metal packers.