PETROLEUM EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Volume 46, Issue 6, December 2019

Online English edition of the Chinese language journal

Cite this article as: PETROL. EXPLOR. DEVELOP., 2019, 46(6): 1251–1259. RESEARCH PAPER

Effects of fluid flow rate and viscosity on gravel-pack

plugging and the optimization of sand-control wells
production
DONG Changyin1,*, ZHOU Yugang1, CHEN Qiang2, ZHU Chunming3, LI Yanlong2, LI Xiaobo3,
LIU Yabin1
1. Key Laboratory of Unconventional Oil & Gas Development (China University of Petroleum (East China)), Ministry of Education, Qingdao
266580, China;
2. Qingdao Institute of Marine Geology, Qingdao 266073, China;
3. Production Optimization-COSL, Tianjin 300459, China

Abstract: Series of experiments were performed to simulate the invasion of formation sand into and the plugging process of
gravel-pack at different viscosities and flowing rates of fluid. Two types of formation sands with the medium size of 0.10 mm and 0.16
mm and the quartz sand and ceramsite of 0.61.2 mm were used in the experiments. A new viscosity-velocity index (the product of fluid
viscosity and velocity) was put forward to characterize the influencing mechanism and law of physical property and flow condition of
formation fluid on gravel-pack plugging, and a new method to optimize the production rate of wells controlling sand production with
gravel-packing was proposed. The results show that the permeability of formation sand invaded zone and final permeability of plugged
gravel-pack have negative correlations with viscosity and flow velocity of fluid, the higher the flow velocity and viscosity, the lower the
permeability of formation sand invaded zone and final permeability of plugged gravel-pack will be. The flow velocity and viscosity of
fluid are key factors affecting plugging degree of the gravel zone. The viscosity-velocity index (v-v index) can reflect the flow character-
istics of fluid very well and make it easier to analyze the plugging mechanism of gravel zone. For different combinations of fluid viscos-
ity and flow velocity, if the v-v index is the same or close, their impact on the final gravel permeability would be the same or close. With
the increase of the v-v index, the permeability of plugged gravel zone decreases first, then the reduction rate slows down till the perme-
ability stabilizes. By optimizing production and increasing production step by step, the optimal working scheme for sand-control well can
reduce the damage to gravel-pack zone permeability caused by sand-carrying fluid effectively, and increase well productivity and extend
the sand control life.

Key words: gravel-pack; sand retention experiment; plugging law; viscosity-velocity index; working scheme; optimization method;
plugging simulation

Introduction control job[37]. The plugging mechanism of gravel-packing

For gravel-packing sand control wells, after being put into
production, the formation sand tends to invade in the packed
gravel zone, which leads to gravel-packing permeability de-
crease, production rate drop and sand control validity period
shorten dramatically[12]. Previous studies show that the proc-
ess of sand retention is essentially the process of gradual
plugging of the sand retention media by formation sand car-
ried by fluid. During this process, the permeability of the
sand-blocking media decreases gradually and reaches the final
equilibrium, which causes well productivity loss after sand
porous media is related not only to gravel-sand median size
ratio (GSR), but also the viscosity and flow velocity of
fluid[811]. In recent years, the study of gravel plugging me-
chanism mainly focuses on the gravel size optimization and
the influence of GSR on sand retention effect[819]. In the early
stage, Saucier[12] put forward a typical gravel size design
method considering of the influence of GSR through experi-
mental study. Through numerical simulation and physical
modeling, other researchers[816] investigated the influence of
GSR, sand uniformity coefficient, clay content, fluid viscosity,
flow velocity and gravel-packing compactness on gravel

Received date: 11 Mar. 2019; Revised date: 18 Jul. 2019.

* Corresponding author. E-mail: dongcy@upc.edu.cn
Foundation item: Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51774307).
https://doi.org/10.1016/S1876-3804(19)60278-8
Copyright © 2019, Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration & Development, PetroChina. Publishing Services provided by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Com-
munications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
 DONG Changyin et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2019, 46(6): 1251–1259
plugging performance. But almost all of these studies are
qualitative analysis of single factor on gravel plugging.
Through gravel-packing plugging simulation experiments,
DONG[18] worked out an quantitative formula to describe the
relationship between packed gravel plugging degree and pro-
duction time, but didn’t examine the joint effect of flow ve-
locity and viscosity of fluid. Other researchers[1923] optimized
gravel size according to the sand-gravel size matching evalua-
tion, but didn’t consider the flow factors of fluid either. In a
word, the previous studies didn’t consider well producing
conditions, such as oil viscosity, fluid producing intensity and
flow velocity seriously, or only analyzed the influence of sin-
gle factors on gravel plugging qualitatively.
As the mechanism and quantitative law of sand invading
gravel is still not clear, there is still no direct basis and effec-
tive method reported to optimize the production rate for sand
controlled wells put into production. In this work, a series of
gravel-pack plugging modeling experiments were conducted
with different sizes of formation sand, fluid viscosities and
flow velocities. Based on the analysis of experiment results,
the fluid viscosity-velocity index is put forward to character-
ize the influence mechanism and law of fluid properties and
flow condition on gravel-pack plugging. On this basis, a sys-
tematic production optimization method for gravel packed
well is developed, which involves the method to determine the
maximum production rate and a multi-step promotion method
to achieve the maximum production rate.
1. Experiment principle and conditions
1.1. Principle and method
After the gravel-packing job, the bridge structure of screen
pipe, gravel pack and formation sand is formed as shown in
Fig. 1a. When the well is put into production, the sand pro-
duced from formation carried by fluid invades into the gravel,
forming a sand-gravel mixed zone (Fig. 1b), which causes the
permeability of gravel zone and well productivity to drop
sharply. The drop degree of permeability and productivity
depend on the invasion depth and permeability of the mixed
zone[2,910].
According to Fig. 1b, the process of sand invading into
gravel is essentially the sand particles carried by fluid migrat-
ing and plugging in the throat space of the gravel porous
Fig. 1. Sketch of sand control by gravel-packing and invasion of
sand into gravel.
 1252 
Fig. 2. Modeling apparatus of gravel-packing sand control.
media. The invading depth and volume of sand are closely re-
lated to GSR firstly, and to density, viscosity and flow veloc-
ity of fluid secondly.
An experiment apparatus was set up to simulate the process
of sand retention and plugging in the gravel pack, which in-
cluded a fluid tank, a pump, a sand mixer, a sand collector,
main radial and linear displacement containers, a data acquisi-
tion system and a control system (Fig. 2). The linear dis-
placement containers used in this experiment consists of a
series of transparent cylinder joints with different diameters.
The gravel can be packed into the cylinder joints freely to
simulate the gravel-packing media.
During the experiment, formation sand of a certain propor-
tion was mixed into the fluid through the sand mixer. The
sand-fluid mixture flew through the packed gravel, modeling
the invasion and plugging of formation sand particles of the
gravel zone. As this experiment study focused on modeling
the impact, invading and plugging of formation produced sand
to packed gravel, the sand production from formation was
simulated directly by the incoming flow of sand carried by
fluid. The fluid viscosity, flow rate, sand size, sand content
could be manually controlled. The amount and size of sand
passing through gravel could be measured by the sand
collector. The flow rate of fluid, differential pressure across
the gravel layer and the packed geometric parameters were
measured to work out the variation of permeability with time,
and the invasion depth of sand into the gravel could be
observed in real time. The gravel packing permeability under
one-direction flow can be calculated based on experiment data
with the formula below:
Q Ls
Ks  (1)
Ap
1.2. Materials and parameters
The fluid used in the experiments was prepared with clear
water with viscosity of 1.0 mPas and guanidine gum solution
with viscosity of 1–20 mPas. The formation sand used in the
experiment was prepared with quartz sand with different sizes
according to the size distribution curves of two typical sand
samples from Shengli Oilfield. The two sand samples were
0.10 mm and 0.16 mm in median size, and 15% and 25% in
clay content. The clay was prepared by mixing kaolinite, illite
 DONG Changyin et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2019, 46(6): 1251–1259

and montmorillonite at the ratio of 1:3:1. The solid packing
materials were quartz sand and ceramsite of 0.6–1.2 mm in
size. The GSR of them with formation sand ranged from 5.4
to 8.6, basically representing the common GSR range in
oilfields. The detailed parameters of sand and solid packing
materials used are listed in Table 1 and Table 2. It should be
noted that the median size difference between the two types of
solid packing materials is caused by the prime material sorting
and processing. Moreover, this study ignored the sand reten-
tion and plugging difference related to the slight difference of
the materials properties, and put emphasis on the influence of
flow parameters on plugging performance.
2. Plugging performance and viscosity-velocity
index sensitive analysis
2.1. Invasion of formation sand into sand-gravel mixed
zone
S1 sand, T1 ceramsite and clean water with viscosity of 1.0
mPas were used to do sand retention experiment in the 2#
linear displacement container shown in Fig. 2. The inside di-
ameter of the cylinder container was 50 mm and the packed
gravel length was 150 mm. The displacement time was about
46 min, and two flow rates were 0.7 m3/h and 1.2 m3/h. Dur-
ing the experiment, the flow rate and differential pressure
across the packed gravel were measured and recorded, and the
permeability variation curves of the two experiments could be
calculated as shown in Fig. 3.
It can be seen from Fig. 3 that the tested gravel pack per-
meability gradually decreases from initial value and then
reaches the final stable state, which is in accordance to the
three stages of plug beginning, aggravating and balancing as
mentioned in the reference [23]. After the plugging reaches
equilibrium state, the mixed zone depth and permeability
hardly change any more. In the experiments, the initial per-
meability of T1 ceramsite was about 335 μm2, and the final
gravel plugging permeability decreased to 45 μm2 and 275
μm2 at the flow rate of 1.2 m3/h and 0.7 m3/h respectively. The
corresponding permeability ratio of them are 13.4% and
82.1%, which seem wide in difference. The results indicate
that displacement rate (flow velocity) has considerable influ-
ence on gravel plugging performance. Under the same condi-
tions, the higher the flow rate, the more serious the plugging
of the sand to gravel will be.
After each experiment, the packed gravel sample was care-
fully removed out of the container and the mixed zone pattern
formed by sand invasion was observed. The photographs of
two mixed zones formed at two flow rates are shown in Fig. 4.
The micro images of gravel pack and the mixed zone are
shown in Fig. 5. Because of the distribution law of formation
sand size and the heterogeneity of throats formed by gravel
particles, even with the reasonable GSR, the invasion of sand
into gravel zone is still unavoidable. Part of the sand grains
with smaller size tend to enter the gravel throats with random
size[21], forming a sand-gravel mixed zone.
The final gravel plugging degree is characterized by the fi-
nal plugging permeability (the apparent permeability of the

Table1. Property data of formation sand used in the experiment.

NO. Median size/mm Uniformity coefficient Clay content/%
S1 0.16 5.0 15
S2 0.10 5.1 25

Table 2. Property data of solid-packing materials used in the

experiment.
NO. Solid material Size/mm Median size/mm
G1 Quartz sand 0.60–1.20 1.07
T1 Ceramsite 0.60–1.20 0.86 Fig. 4. Photographs of sand-gravel mixed zones formed at dif-
ferent flow rates.

Fig. 3. Permeability curves of the gravel-packing zone during Fig. 5. Micro-photographs of sand-gravel mixed zone formed
the two experiments. after sand invasion (at the flow rate of 1.2 m3/h).
 1253 
 DONG Changyin et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2019, 46(6): 1251–1259

whole gravel sample) and permeability ratio (the ratio of final
plugging permeability to the initial permeability of clean
gravel). The final plugging degree is mainly related to the
sand invasion depth and permeability of gravel zone. In this
case, the mixed zone depth formed at the flow rate of 1.2 m3/h
is about 1.2 cm (Fig. 4a). Based on the total gravel length,
initial gravel permeability and final plugging permeability, the
real permeability of the mixed zone calculated is about 4.2
μm2. In comparison, the mixed zone depth formed at the flow
rate of 0.7 m3/h is about 4.2 cm (Fig. 4b) and the real perme-
ability of the mixed zone calculated is about 192.1 μm2.
It should be noted that, although the higher flow rate of 1.2
3
m /h leads to lower final plugging permeability, but much
shorter mixed zone depth (1.2 cm) than the lower flow rate of
0.7 m3/h. The reason is that under the same sand content of
fluid, the higher flow rate indicates much quicker rate of
coming sand particles, but due to the complicated throat
structure of the packed gravel, the migrating velocity of sand
in the throat is very low, so there is not enough time for the
invaded sand to migrate deeply into the gravel throat, and the
sand pile up on the gravel zone surface or shortly inside the
gravel zone, blocking the channels for subsequent sand inva-
sion, and forming the mixed zone with shorter length but
lower permeability with a clear interface between the plug-
ging and clean gravel finally (Fig. 5b).
In order to investigate the migration of sand inside the
gravel, the packed gravel section is separated into three parts,
A, B and C along the incoming direction of fluid as shown in
Fig. 6. According to the analysis of experiments at different
flow rates, the particle size median value distribution of
sand-gravel mixture in the different sections were worked out
as shown in Fig. 6, too.
In Fig. 6, section A is the location easy to be impacted and
plugged by fluid and sand. As the displacement flow rate
increasing, the median size of sand-gravel mixture in section
A decreases obviously, which indicates the increasing amount
of the invading sand in it. In contrast, the median size of
mixture in section B decreases slightly, which indicates that
only a small amount of sand reaches the middle of the gravel
section. Correspondingly, the median size of sand-gravel
mixture in section C almost hardly changed, showing hardly
any sand reached the end of the gravel cylinder, in other
words, the gravel zone functions well in blocking sand.
2.2. Effect of fluid viscosity and flow velocity on plugging
performance
In order to study the influence of flow parameters on gravel
plugging degree, a series of experiments were conducted with
T1 ceramsite, S2 sand with clay content of 25%, and the
displacing fluid with a viscosity of 1.0 mPas at different flow
rates. The final plugging permeability (or permeability ratio),
mixed zone permeability and depth of mixed zone at different
flow rates are shown in Fig. 7.
Fig. 7 illustrates the influence law of flow rate (velocity) on
gravel plugging degree. Under the same condition, the higher
the flow rate, the lower the mixed zone permeability, and the
lower the final plugging permeability and permeability ratio
will be. When the flow rate increased from 0.7 m3/h to 1.0
m3/h, the permeability ratio of the gravel zone reduced from
0.818 to 0.154, that is 81.2%. It is worth noting that with the
increase of displacement rate, the final depth (length) of the
mixed zone gets shorter. The reason has been explained
before.
A group of experiments were performed with T1 ceramsite
Fig. 6. Tested median value of mixed particle sizes from three
sections after displacement at different flow rates.

Fig. 7. Influence of displacement flow rate on gravel plugging degree.

 1254 
 DONG Changyin et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2019, 46(6): 1251–1259
Fig. 8. Influence of fluid viscosity on gravel plugging degree.
and S2 sand with a clay content of 25% at the flow rate of 0.8
m3/h and fluid viscosities of 1, 5, 10, 15 and 20 mPas respec-
tively to find out the effect of fluid viscosity on plugging de-
gree. The results are shown in Fig. 8.
It can be seen from Fig. 8 that when the other flow para-
meters are the same, the higher the fluid viscosity, the lower
the mixed zone permeability, and the lower the final plugging
permeability and permeability ratio will be. Moreover, with
the increase of fluid viscosity, the final depth of mixed zone
decreases, the reason is similar to the variation of plugging
degree caused by flow rate (velocity) mentioned above.
Another group of experiments were performed to explore
the influence of fluid viscosity and flow velocity on gravel
plugging degree further. These experiments were conducted
with S1 sand and G1 quartz sand at different fluid viscosities
and flow rates. The results are shown in Fig. 9. It can be seen
that both flow rate (velocity) and fluid viscosity have directly
effect on gravel plugging degree. The higher the flow rate and
viscosity of the fluid, the stronger the sand-carrying capacity
of the fluid will be, thus more sand particles will be carried
into the gravel, making the final plugging permeability lower.
From the comparison of the experiment results of Fig. 7 to
Fig. 9, it can be seen that flow rate and viscosity of fluid have
similar influence on plugging degree.
Fig. 9. Influence of fluid viscosity and flow rate on gravel plug-
ging degree.
 1255 
2.3. Effect of fluid viscosity-velocity index on plugging
performance
Studies[2425] have proven that, for liquid-solid two phase
flow, the solid particle carrying ability of fluid has approxi-
mate positive correlation with fluid viscosity and relative
velocity between the fluid and solid. Due to the broad range of
viscosity of produced fluid from numerous oil wells, it is very
difficult to investigate the plugging degree of all the range of
fluid viscosity. In order to characterize the influence of fluid
viscosity and flow velocity on plugging degree, the “visco-
sity-velocity index” (v-v index) is put forward to represent the
flowing conditions to avoid the uncertainty of single factor.
The v-v index is defined as the product of flow velocity and
viscosity of fluid:
 = v (2)
To prove the joint influence of flow velocity and viscosity
on gravel plugging and the rationality of characterizing flow
conditions with v-v index, two groups of experiments were
done as shown in Table 3. All of the experiments used S1 sand
and G1 quartz sand. The v-v index of 3.33×10−4 N/m and
10.0×10−4 N/m were preset respectively to group A and Group
B. In every group, the same v-v index was obtained by differ-
ent combinations of fluid viscosity and flow velocity with the
same product value of fluid viscosity and flow velocity. These
groups of experiments were arranged to find out the gravel
plugging degree variation law under different combinations of
fluid viscosities and flow velocities, but with the same or
close v-v index value.
The two groups of experiments were carried out according
to the combinations in Table 3, and the mixed zone depth and
gravel plugging permeability curves obtained are shown in
Fig. 10. It can be seen that regardless of group A or B, the
experiments with same or close v-v index tend to achieve the
same or close final gravel plugging permeability with fluctua-
tion range less than 15%, although they have different combi-
nations of viscosity and flow velocity. Fig. 10b also illustrates
the similar law of mixed zone depth with v-v index, and the
variation range of mixed zone depth is less than 18%. These
results indicate that although related to fluid viscosity and
 DONG Changyin et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2019, 46(6): 1251–1259

Table 3. Combinations of flow velocities and viscosities with the

same or close v-v index.
Test Flow Fluid v-v index of
Target v-v index/
Group

−4 −1 velocity/ viscosity/ combination/

NO. (10 Nm )
(ms−1) (mPas) (10−4 Nm−1)
1 0.333 1.0 3.33
2 0.221 1.5 3.32
A 3 3.33 0.158 2.1 3.32
4 0.115 2.9 3.34
5 0.098 3.4 3.33
1 0.333 3.0 9.99
2 0.221 4.5 9.95
B 3 10.00 0.158 6.3 9.95 Fig. 11. Influence of v-v index on gravel plugging degree.
4 0.115 8.7 10.00
5 0.098 10.2 9.99 were S1 sand and T1 ceramsite respectively. The relationships
of final gravel plugging permeability and permeability ratio
with v-v index are shown in Fig. 11.
In general, the larger the v-v index, the lower the final
gravel plugging permeability will be. But with the increase of
v-v index, the final gravel plugging permeability follows dif-
ferent variation pattern at three stages as shown in Fig. 11. (1)
Stage Ⅰ: as v-v index increase to 1.7×10−4 N/m, gravel per-
meability decreases rapidly from the initial value of 400 μm2
to about 70 μm2, the corresponding permeability ratio from
0.8 to 0.5. (2) Stage Ⅱ with v-v index changing from 1.7×
10−4 N/m to 4.5×10−4 N/m, with the increase of v-v index, the
decrease rates of final gravel permeability and permeability
ratio were much slower than stage Ⅰ, the gravel permeability
decreased from 70 μm2 to 40 μm2, and the permeability ratio
from 0.5 to 0.3. (3) Stage Ⅲ with v-v index exceeding
4.5×10−4 N/m, gravel permeability and permeability ratio de-
crease very slowly or keeps stable, with an average of about
28 μm2 and 0.105, respectively.

3. Gravel-packed well production optimization

Fig. 10. Result comparison of experiments under different flow
velocity and viscosity combinations with the same v-v index.
flow rate, the final gravel plugging degree has a better corre-
lation with v-v index. For different combinations of viscosities
and velocities, if the v-v index is the same or close, the final
plugging degree would be the same or close, too. This means
the v-v index can be used to characterize the comprehensive
conditions of fluid flow very intuitively, and is the key factor
affecting the gravel plugging degree.
To investigate further the relationship of gravel plugging
degree and v-v index, 60 groups of experiments were done at
the v-v index range of (1.0-17.0)×10−4 N/m by arranging dif-
ferent fluid viscosities and flow velocities. The flow rates
used varied from 0.7 m3/h to 1.2 m3/h (corresponding flow
velocity from 0.099 m/s to 0.170 m/s) and fluid viscosities
from 1 mPas to 10 mPas. The sand and solid material used
 1256 
The fluid v-v index influences directly the final gravel
plugging degree. According to the equivalence principle (the
v-v index of actual well equals to that of experimental test),
the proper working production could be determined, and the
production scheme of gravel-packing well can be optimized
by v-v index.
3.1. Displacement experiment with multi-step flow rate
It can be seen from Fig. 11 that the higher the fluid v-v in-
dex, the lower the final gravel plugging permeability is. For a
given oil well, the viscosity of produced fluid remains basi-
cally the same, so the controllable factor decides the v-v index
is flow rate, in other words, the production rate of the well. By
controlling the production rate properly, the final gravel plug-
ging permeability will be higher, but this is conflict with
seeking high production. To solve this problem, a new pro-
duction optimization method, that is multi-step production
enhancing method, which can not only control the reduction
of gravel plugging permeability, but also meet the requirement
of desired production rate, has been proposed.
 DONG Changyin et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2019, 46(6): 1251–1259
Fig. 12. Gravel permeability curves at multi-step flow rates.
To verify the validity of the above-mentioned method, S1
sand, T1 ceramsite and displacing fluid with a viscosity of 1.0
mPas were used to do three experiments at different combi-
nations of flow rates (D, E and F) with the maximum flow
rate of 1.2 m3/h. The curves of gravel permeability with dis-
placement time in the three experiments are shown in Fig. 12.
In test D, the flow rate was kept as the target maximum
value of 1.2 m3/h from beginning to end in one-step. Test E
used two-step flow rate displacement. During the period from
0 to t2 (about 1360 s), the flow rate was 0.8 m3/h, and the flow
rate was increased to the target maximum value of 1.2 m3/h
after t2. In Test F, the flow rate changed in three steps. The
flow rate was set at 0.8 m3/h from 0 to t 1 (about 750 s), 1.0
m3/h from t1 to t3 (about 2080 s), and 1.2 m3/h from t3 to the
end of displacement.
The maximum flow rates of the three tests were all 1.2 m3/h.
But, just due to different combinations of flow rates, the grav-
el permeability variation during the displacement and the final
gravel permeability were different widely. (1) In the test D
taking one-step maximum flow rate, the gravel permeability
decreased quickly at the early stage, and the final gravel plug-
ging permeability was the lowest of about 33 μm2. (2) In the
test E taking two-step flow rate, a lower flow rate was used to
displace for a period and then the flow rate was increased to
the target maximum flow rate, the gravel permeability was
kept higher during displacement, and the final gravel plugging
permeability was higher than that of test D. (3) In test F with
three-step flow rate, the gravel permeability during displace-
ment and the final gravel plugging permeability are higher
than those of the other two experiments.
Fig. 13 shows the gravel permeability in every displace-
ment stage of the three flow-rate combinations. (1) During the
startup of stage 1, the initial gravel permeabilities of three
tests were similar to each other. As the displacement contin-
ued, gravel permeability decreased gradually. The higher the
flow rate, the greater the permeability reduction was. (2) At
the stage 2, the test D had higher flow rate, and higher gravel
permeability drop than test E (0.8 m3/h) and F (1.0 m3/h), in
general, the higher the flow rate, the greater the reduction of
permeability. (3) In stage 3, test F had the lowest flow rate, so
the gravel permeability dropped the least and kept the highest.
(4) At the end of stage 4, although all of the three tests D, E
 1257 
Fig. 13. Comparison of gravel permeabilities at different stages
of multi-step flow rate displacement.
and F reached the target maximum flow rate, they ended in
widely different final gravel plugging permeabilities of 33
μm2, 46 μm2 and 60 μm2 respectively. The final permeabilities
of two-step displacement (test E) and three-step displacement
(test F) were 39% and 82% higher than one-step displacement
(test D) respectively. The permeability of three-step is about
30% higher than that of two-step.
3.2. Maximum production rate optimization for sand
control wells
The packed gravel zone is the inflow channel of oil and gas
into the gravel-packing well. The gravel permeability deter-
mines the well productivity directly. Beside the enhancing
manner of production rate, the target production rate is an-
other crucial factor determining the final gravel permeability
and well productivity. The above experiments and results give
us an idea for production optimization of gravel-packing wells.
For the oil well with proration production determined, based
on the principle that the v-v index of actual well equals that of
experiment test, the production rate of the well can be en-
hanced by steps to reach the proration production, this way,
the final gravel plugging permeability would be higher than
producing at the proration production directly, and the final
production would be higher. The specific method is: The pro-
duction is divided into 3 levels based on the proration produc-
tion (40%50%, 70%80% and 100% of the proration pro-
duction). Then the production rate can be increased by three
steps one by one and the production period of the first two
steps is 1224 h. In consideration of field operation complex-
ity, the production rate increase pattern of more than three
steps isn’t discussed here.
Based on the relationships between final gravel plugging
permeability and permeability ratio and v-v index, and the
minimum gravel permeability required by gravel packing
wells, the critical v-v index can be worked out, and then the
production of well can be calculated by using fluid viscosity,
and this value is the optimum proration production which can
avoid excessive plugging of the gravel zone.
The specific method of optimizing production is illustrated
here with a vertical well with a 10 m thick oil layer. Assuming
the perforation density is 36 holes/m and size of perforation
holes is 14 mm. The relationships of v-v index and liquid
 DONG Changyin et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2019, 46(6): 1251–1259
References
Fig. 14. Relationship of liquid production rate and fluid viscos-
ity and v-v index.
production rate at different fluid viscosities can be calculated
by using flow velocity of the perforation hole and production
rate (Fig. 14). If the minimum gravel plugging permeability is
40 μm2, the corresponding maximum v-v index is calculated
at about 5.0×10−4 N/m according to Fig. 11. Supposing the
formation fluid viscosity is 30 mPas, the final maximum
liquid production rate can be worked out at 100 m3/d based on
Fig. 14. This production rate is the optimum rate which can
avoid excessive plugging. According to this optimum produc-
tion rate, the proper working scheme of the well is obtained
by increasing the production in three steps.
4. Conclusions
The depth and gravel plugging permeability of sand-gravel
mixed zone and the final gravel plugging permeability are in
negative correlation with flow rate and viscosity of the
sand-carrying fluid. The higher the flow rate and viscosity of
the fluid, the lower the mixed zone permeability and the final
gravel plugging permeability, and the smaller the mixed zone
depth will be.
Flow rate and viscosity of fluid are the key parameters af-
fecting the gravel plugging degree. The fluid viscosity-velo-
city index can characterize the fluid flowing properties well
and make the analysis of gravel plugging mechanism easier.
For different combinations of fluid viscosity and flow velocity,
if the v-v index is the same or close, the final gravel plugging
permeability would be the same or close. With the increase of
v-v index, the gravel plugging permeability decreases rapidly
at first, then slowly, till stabilizes finally.
The production optimization method for sand control well
combines the optimum production rate and a multi-step pro-
duction rate increase manner, which can reduce the damage to
gravel permeability by sand invasion and increase well pro-
ductivity.
Nomenclature
A—flow path area, m2;
Ks—gravel plugging permeability, m2;
Ls—thickness of gravel-packing zone, m;
Q—tested flow rate, m3/s;
 1258 
v—flow velocity, m/s;
 —fluid viscosity-velocity index (v-v index), N/m;
p —differential pressure across gravel-packing zone, Pa;
 —fluid viscosity, Pas.
[1] SI Lianshou, LI Zi’an, ZHANG Jian. Influence of gravel
packing sand control on the productivity of heavy oil well.
Journal of Southwest Petroleum University (Edition of Natural
Science), 2013, 35(5): 135–140.
[2] GAO Kaige, DONG Changyin. Regularity of permeability
loss in gravel-packing layer for sand control during initial
production. Oil Drilling & Production Technology, 2016,
38(6): 876–881.
[3] LI Aifen, YAO Jun, KOU Yongqiang. Productivity prediction
method for gravel-packing sand control well. Petroleum Ex-
ploration and Development, 2004, 31(1): 103–105.
[4] MIRSHEKARI B, DADVAR M, MODARES H, et al. Model-
ing and simulation of gravel-pack damage due to particle
transport by single phase flow in cased hole completion. In-
ternational Journal of Oil Gas & Coal Technology, 2014, 7(2):
152–168.
[5] KAMPEL G, GOLDSZTEIN G H. Transport of non-brownian
particles in porous media. Siam Journal on Applied Mathe-
matics, 2011, 71(3): 773–790.
[6] DONG Changyin, ZHANG Qinghua, ZHENG Hua’an, et al.
Dynamic productivity evaluation and application of sand-con-
trol well in thermal recovery of heavy oil reservoir. Special
Oil and Gas Reservoirs, 2016, 23(6): 123–127.
[7] PERERA M S A, RANJITH P G, RATHNAWEERA T D, et
al. An experimental study to quantify sand production during
oil recovery from unconsolidated quicksand formations. Petro-
leum Exploration and Development, 2017, 44(5): 811–816.
[8] DONG Changyin, JIA Bixia, LIU Chunmiao, et al. Blocking
mechanism and blocking laws experiments of sand retention
media in mechanical screens. Journal of China University of
Petroleum (Edition of Natural Science), 2011, 35(5): 82–88.
[9] WANG Zhigang, LI Aifen. Experimental study on the mecha-
nism of gravel packing for gravel packing. Journal of China
University of Petroleum (Edition of Natural Science), 2000,
24(5): 49–53.
[10] DONG Changyin, GAO Kaige, WANG Jing, et al. Experi-
mental study on mechanical and chemical combined plugging
mechanism of sand control media in heavy oil reservoirs with
polymer flooding. Journal of China University of Petroleum
(Edition of Natural Science), 2016, 40(5): 104–111.
[11] YUAN H, SHAPIRO A. Induced migration of fines during
water flooding in communicating layer-cake reservoirs. Journal
of Petroleum Science & Engineering, 2011, 78(3): 618–626.
[12] SAUCIER R J. Consideration in gravel pack design. JPT,
1974, 26(2): 205–206.
[13] BOUHROUM A, LIU X, CIVAN F. Predictive model and
verification for sand particulates migration in gravel packs.
 DONG Changyin et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2019, 46(6): 1251–1259
SPE 28534, 1994.
[14] YANN B. Investigation of pore-blocking mechanism in gravel
packs in the management and control of fines migration. SPE
27342, 1994.
[15] DONG Changyin, GAO Kaige, XU Hongzhi, et al. Experi-
mental study on the influence of filling density on the sand
blocking effect and stability of gravel. Oil Drilling & Produc-
tion Technology, 2018, 40(1): 123–130.
[16] MOGHADASI J, MÜLLER-STEINHAGEN H, JAMIA-
LAHMADI M, et al. Theoretical and experimental study of
particle movement and deposition in porous media during wa-
ter injection. Journal of Petroleum Science & Engineering,
2004, 43(3): 163–181.
[17] DONG C Y, GAO K G, DONG S X, et al. A new integrated
method for comprehensive performance of mechanical sand
control screens testing and evaluation. Journal of Petroleum
Science and Engineering, 2017, 158: 775–783.
[18] DONG Changyin. Experimental study of sand retaining media
plugging pattern in sand control well and quantitative predic-
tion model for plugging degree. Journal of Experiment Me-
chanics, 2017, 32(3): 351–360.
[19] LI Yanlong, HU Gaowei, LIU Changling, et al. Gravel sizing
method for sand control packing in hydrate production test
wells. Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2017, 44(6):
 1259 
129–134.
[20] DONG Changyin, ZHANG Qi, SUN Wei. New considerations
in optimization design of sand control methods concerning
gravel pack. Journal of China University of Petroleum (Edi-
tion of Natural Science), 2006, 30(5): 57–61.
[21] BO Qiwei, DONG Changyin, ZHANG Qi, et al. Visual simu-
lation of porous structure in packed gravels. Petroleum Ex-
ploration and Development, 2003, 30(4): 108–110.
[22] DONG Changyin, ZHANG Qinghua, GAO Kaige, et al.
Screen sand retaining precision optimization experiment and a
new empirical design model. Petroleum Exploration and De-
velopment, 2016, 43(6): 991–996.
[23] DONG Changyin, ZHONG Yixin, WU Yanxin, et al. Experi-
mental study on sand retention mechanisms and feasibility
evaluation of sand control for gas hydrate reservoirs with
highly clayey fine sands. Journal of China University of Pe-
troleum (Edition of Natural Science), 2018, 42(6): 79–87.
[24] JIAO Yanhong, LI Ping, WANG Lihua, et al. Experiment and
calculation of critical sand-carrying velocity for high-viscosity
fluid in vertical wellbore. Acta Petrolei Sinica, 2018, 39(5):
604–608.
[25] SUI Bing, LIU Gang, LI Bo, et al. Deposition and movement
laws of particles in fluctuating oil product pipelines. Acta
Petrolei Sinica, 2016, 37(4): 523–530.