Title: Viscosity of Xanthan Based Drilling Fluids: Effect of Temperature, Additives, Rheometer Geometry
Author(s): Naval Goel, Yunxu Zhou, and Subhash Shah
Journal: Journal of the Indian Chemical Society
Abstract: Xanthan based drilling fluids are characterized for their viscosities using Bohlin and Fann viscometers. These characterizations are performed to study the effect of viscometer geometry, fluid temperature and drilling fluid additives on the measured viscosities. The effect of the measuring geometry is observed to be insignificant for the drilling fluid containing xanthan polymer only. The viscosities of the fluids are observed to decrease with an increase in temperature. For the drilling fluids containing additives, the viscosity curves obtained at various temperatures are reduced to master curves using parameters defined using the molecular theories of polymers. The master curves can be used to obtain viscosity values within and beyond the shear rates, temperatures and the polymer concentrations used to generate these curves.
