Additive Manufacturing of Dissolvable Downhole Tools and Materials

水平井水力压裂是艾伯塔省油砂工业的重要工序。该工艺需要一种技术来密封先前的裂缝区域，并通过“桥塞和射孔”的过程将流体引导到下一个压裂阶段，其中使用压裂桥塞隔离井眼下部区域，并使用射孔药打开下一个区域进行压裂。该过程使用了不同的井下工具，这些工具通常在使用后通过钻井或铣削将其从井筒中移除。这些钻出（或磨铣）和清理作业既耗时又昂贵。该领域的许多创新成果都是利用电偶腐蚀原理设计和制造可降解的金属井下工具，从而消除了钻出（或磨铣）和清理作业的需要。这些工具可溶解在井筒中，从而无需昂贵的钻出作业。目前，这些工具是通过粉末冶金（化学气相沉积和均匀混合）来制造的。这导致了复杂的粉末冶金工艺的材料设计和复杂的制造工艺和相关的供应链制造的可溶解工具的挑战。目前的工艺也限制了材料的选择和它们的机械性能。该研究计划旨在通过研究合适的材料选择和增材制造（AM）工艺来改进可溶解井下工具的设计。该研究将着眼于粉末床熔融（PBF）增材制造技术以及混合3D打印和铸造，以开发机械性能明显高于传统制造方法的零件。该技术还允许制造具有复杂几何形状的零件，从而改善和控制溶解性能。

The hydraulic fracturing of horizontal wellbores is an important process in Alberta's oil sands industry. The process requires a technique to seal previously fractured zones and to direct the flow to the next fracture stage, through a process known as "plug and perf", in which frac plugs are employed to isolate lower zones of the wellbore and perforation charges are employed to open the next zone for fracturing. Different down hole tools are used for this process and these tools are conventionally removed after their use by drilling or milling them out of wellbore. These drillout (or millout) and cleanup operations are time consuming and expensive. A number of innovations in this area have resulted into design and manufacturing of degradable metallic downhole tools using the principle of galvanic corrosion to eliminate the need for drillout (or millout) and cleanup operations. These tools dissolve in the well bore, thereby eliminating the need for expensive drillouts. Currently these tools are manufactured by powder metallurgy (chemical vapor deposition, and homogeneous mixing) to fabricate these tools. This results into challenges related to complex powder metallurgy process for material design and a complex manufacturing process and associated supply chain for manufacturing the dissolvable tools. The current process also limits the choice of materials and their mechanical properties. This research proposal aims to improve the design of dissolvable downhole tools by investigating appropriate material selection and additive manufacturing (AM) process. The research will look at Powder bed fusion (PBF) additive manufacturing technique as well as hybrid 3D printing and casting to develop parts with mechanical properties significantly higher than those achieved by conventional fabrication methods. This technique will also allows to make parts with complex geometry, leading to improved and controlled dissolving performance.