Casing design theory and practice
S. S. RAHMAN G. V. CHILINGARIAN
Casing design has followed an evolutionary trend and most improvements have been made due to the advancement of technology. Contributions to the technology in casing design have come from fundamental research and field tests, which made casing safe and economical.
It was the purpose of this book to gather much of the information available in the literature and show how it may be used in deciding the best procedure for casing design, i. e., optimizing casing design for deriving maximum profit from a particular well.
As a brief description of the book. Chapter 1 primarily covers the fundamentals of casing design and is intended as an introduction to casing design. Chapter 2 describes the casing loads experienced during drilling and running casing and includes the API performance standards. Chapters 3 and 4 are designed to develop a systematic procedure for casing design with particular emphasis on deviated, high-pressure, and thermal wells. In Chapter 5. a systematic approach in designing and optimizing casing using a computer algorithm has been presented. Finally, Chapter 6 briefly presents an introduction to the casing corrosion and its prevention.
The problems and their solutions, which are provided in each chapter, and the computer program (3.5 in. disk) are intended to serve two purposes: (1) as illustrations for the students and practicing engineers to understand the subject matter, and (2) to enable them to optimize casing design for a wide range of wells to be drilled in the future.
More experienced design engineers may wish to concentrate only on the first four chapters. The writers have tried to make this book easier to use by separating the derivations from the rest of the text, so that the design equations and important assumptions stand out more clearly.
An attempt was made to use a simplistic approach in the treatment of various topics covered in this book; however, many of the subjects are of such a complex nature that they are not amenable to simple mathematical analysis. Despite this, it is hoped that the mathematical treatment is adequate.
The authors of this book are greatly indebted to Dr. Eric E. Maidla of De- partamento De Engenharia De Petroleo. Universidade Estadual De Campinas Unicamp, 13081 Campinas — SP. Brasil and Dr. Andrew K. Wojtanowicz of the Petroleum Engineering Department. Louisiana State University. Baton Rouge. L. A.. 70803. U. S.A.. for their contribution of Chapter o.
In closing, the writers would like to express their gratitude to all those who have made the preparation of this book possible and. in particular to Prof. C. Marx of the Institute of Petroleum Engineering. Technical University of C’lausthal. for his guidance and sharing his immense experience. The writers would also like to thank Drs. G. Krug of Mannesman W’erk AG. P. Goetze of Ruhr Gas AG. and El Saved of Cairo University for numerous suggestions and fruitful discussions.
Sheikh S. Rahman George V. Chilingarian