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艺。这一工艺需要一种技术来封堵以前的裂缝区，并通过一种被称为“塞子和封堵”的工艺将水流引导到下一个裂缝阶段。在这种工艺中，压裂塞被用来隔离井筒的下层，射孔装药被用来打开下一个要压裂的层。这一过程使用不同的井下工具，这些工具在使用后通常通过钻出井筒或将其磨出井筒而被取出。这些钻探(或钻探)和清理操作既耗时又昂贵。这一领域的一些创新已导致利用电偶腐蚀原理设计和制造可降解的金属井下工具，以消除钻(或磨)出和清理作业的需要。这些工具溶解在井筒中，因此不需要昂贵的钻井。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。这导致了与用于材料设计的复杂粉末冶金工艺以及用于制造可溶解工具的复杂制造工艺和相关供应链相关的挑战。目前的工艺也限制了材料的选择及其机械性能。这项研究方案旨在通过研究合适的材料选择和添加剂制造(AM)工艺来改进可溶解井下工具的设计。这项研究将着眼于粉末床熔化(PBF)添加剂制造技术以及混合3D打印和铸造，以开发机械性能显著高于传统制造方法的部件。这项技术还将允许制造具有复杂几何形状的部件，从而提高和控制溶解性能。

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.