Selecting an Appropriate Rheological Model for Environmentally Friendly Water-Based Drilling Fluid

Abstract

A vital component of oil and gas drilling operations is drilling fluid. Water-based drilling fluids have been enhanced with organic-based components to encourage the protection of the environment and sustainable development. Recently, materials derived from orange peels have been studied and found useful in improving the quality of water-based drilling fluids. This study examined mathematical models to describe the rheological properties of water based drilling fluids incorporating orange peel powder in various concentration. Selecting a suitable rheological model facilitates the estimation of pressure losses and enables more precise hydraulic calculations. Three rheological models, namely Bingham Plastic, Power Law and Herschel-Bulkley, were investigated. To assess the accuracy of the models compared to experimental data obtained in the laboratory, performance metrics including Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), Mean Squared Error (MSE), and Coefficient of Determination (R2) were employed. The results indicate that the rheological behavior of drilling fluids incorporating orange peel powder can be adequately represented by the Herschel-Bulkley model, exhibiting the highest R2 value, lowest MAPE and MSE values when compared to the Power Law model and Bingham Plastic model.