Studies of Environmental Stress Cracking of High Density Polyethylene Liner in Alkaline Surfactant Polymer Enhanced Oil Recovery Floods
Date
2013-12-19
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Abstract
Alkali surfactant polymer (ASP) flooding is an enhanced oil recovery (EOR)
process that is used to increase the amount of crude oil that can be extracted from
conventional oil reservoirs. With the increasing use of high density polyethylene (HDPE)
pipes in EOR process, environmental stress cracking (ESC) poses a threat to the
integrity of the pipe in ASP floods.
In this research, the ESC behaviour of HDPE pipes was studied in ASP floods under
conditions that simulated the EOR reality. Particularly, tensile tests were conducted on
three types of materials, i.e., HDPE4710, HDPE3608 and polyethylene 100+ (PE100+),
which have been soaked in ASP under various pressures and temperatures. Results
demonstrate that HDPE can experience degradation upon ASP soaking, resulting in a
reduction of elongation of the material, especially at elevated temperatures. Moreover,
HDPE 4710 is more resistant to ASP soaking in terms of the stress-strain behavior,
while 3608 is least resistant to ASP soaking.
The resistance of HDPE to ESC was also investigated on pre-cracked specimen in
ASP flood with various concentrations. Various analysis techniques, including
differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron
microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), were used to
characterize their ESC behaviour mechanistically. It was found that ASP floods
concentration, applied stress level, ambient temperature and the mechanical
characteristics of various HDPEs affects the ESC behaviour on the HDPEs.
Furthermore, the water permeation property of HDPE 3608 was investigated by determining the water vapour transmission (WVT) rate at various temperatures and the
specimen thicknesses. A model was developed to illustrate the parametric effects on the
water permeating rate. It was found that WVT is quadratic function of ambient
temperature and power function of film thickness. As a result of combination of three
parameters, it can be found that ambient temperature is quadratic function to WVT and
thickness is quadratic coefficient of temperature term. The modeling results are
validated by the experimental data.
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Materials Science
Citation
Li, Z. (2013). Studies of Environmental Stress Cracking of High Density Polyethylene Liner in Alkaline Surfactant Polymer Enhanced Oil Recovery Floods (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27913