Study on sealing behavior of corroded tubing in a high pressure environment.

Tubing corrosion is becoming more and more serious due to the harsh operating environment and corrosive medium transportation. It results in frequent seal failure of plugs used for tubing lift-off in snubbing operations. This paper develops a finite element model of a plug rubber cylinder sealing a defected tubing. The sealing performance of the rubber cylinder under the defected tubing is studied. The accuracy of model is tested experimentally. The related structural parameters affecting the sealing performance of rubber cylinder are pointed out by numerical derivation. The results show that when selecting the equivalent defected tubing size, smaller depth and radius and larger axial height can be selected. The expression of sealing performance of rubber cylinder in defected tubing environment is obtained. The influence of the key parameters on the sealing performance of the rubber cylinder is the axial height, depth and radius from high to low. The research work in this paper can provide theoretical guidance for the behavior of rubber cylinder seal corroding tubing in snubbing operation. • Performed a finite element analysis of a plug rubber cylinder sealing a defected tubing. • Got the prediction formula of sealing performance of rubber cylinder in the defected tubing. • The influence weights of the axial height, depth and radius of the defected area on the sealing performance of the rubber cylinder were obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]