Laboratory analysis of the rheology of a polymer-based mud produced with magnetic water as a fluid used in oil well drilling

In this study, the application of iron oxide nanoparticles has been investigated in the presence of an external magnetic field to control the rheology of drilling fluids. Drilling fluid rheology is one of the most important factors for determining the optimal fluid. On the other hand, polymers in the water-base drilling fluid is used in order to fluid loss controlling. In low density oil-base fluids, where the water content is low, rheological control is generally difficult since there is a limitation in selection of additives. In this study, the ferromagnetic fluid has been generated by adding nanoparticles of Fe3O4 to silicon oil. By adding ferromagnetic fluid to the oil-base mud under the influence of the external magnetic field, we examined the rheological behavior of the oil-base drilling mud. The external magnetic field can be applied in real conditions in the middle of a magnetic drilling string. The results showed that the magnetic nanoparticles improved the drilling mud rheological properties. Also, the viscosity of the oil-base fluid was measured without the presence of nanoparticles of 2 centipoises, which, it increased to 33 centipoises by adding 4% by weight of iron oxide nanoparticles and under the external magnetic field of 0.321 T. The magnetic field was also used for WBM and the results showed that in water-base fluids containing PolyAnionic Cellulose (PAC) polymer, the magnetic field did not have much effect on the rheological properties of the drilling mud compared to OBM. Since water is the main component of the water-based fluid, increasing the magnetic field reduced the viscosity of the water-base fluid. By adding iron oxide nanoparticles to the polymer-based fluid, the magnetic field increased fluid rheology. The viscosity of the water-base fluid containing nanoparticles increased to 850 centipoises under the magnetic field.