Simulation of Wellbore Drilling Energy Saving of Nanofluids Using an Experimental Taylor–Couette Flow System

Power consumption of wellbore drilling in oil and gas exploitations count for 40% of total costs, hence power saving of WBM (water-based mud) by adding different concentrations of Al₂O₃, TiO₂ and SiO₂ nanoparticles is investigated here. A high-speed Taylor–Couette system (TCS) was devised to operate at speeds 0–1600 RPM to simulate power consumption of wellbore drilling using nanofluids in laminar to turbulent flow conditions. The TCS control unit uses several sensors to record current, voltage and rotational speed and Arduino microprocessors to process outputs including rheological properties and power consumption. Total power consumption of the TCS was correlated with a second-order polynomial function of rotational speed for different nanofluids, and the correlated parameters were found using an optimization technique. For the first time, energy saving of three nanofluids at four low volume concentrations 0.05, 0.1, 0.5 and 1% is investigated in the TCS simulating wellbore drilling operation. It is interesting to observe that the lower concentration nanofluids (0.05%) have better power savings. In average, for the lower concentration nanofluids (0.05%), power was saved by 39%, 30% and 26% for TiO₂, Al₂O₃ and SiO₂ WBM nanofluids, respectively. TiO₂ nanofluids have better power saving at lower concentrations of 0.05 and 0.1%, while Al₂O₃ nanofluids have saved more power at higher concentrations of 0.5 and 1.0% compared with their counterpart nanofluids.