Well integrity for CO2 injection from ships: Simulation of the effect of flow and material parameters on thermal stresses

In this paper we present a coupled flow and heat conduction model for CO2 wells. The model is used to conduct a parameter study and determine the parameters' effect on the temperature variations in the well during injection from ships. The parameters varied are injection rate, injection time, injection temperature and time between injections. The resulting temperature variations are used as input for a 2D thermoelastic finite-element model in ABAQUS to determine the thermal stresses. Our results show that the amplitude of temperature variations downhole is mainly increased by longer pauses between injections, and by lower injection temperature. In the worst-case scenario considered in this paper, the thermal stresses may be large enough to induce debonding at the casing-cement interface.