Numerical modelling of longitudinal vibrations of a sucker rod string

A new technique for analyzing the dynamic behavior of a sucker rod string used in the oil well industry is presented. The main difficulty in the numerical calculation of the examined structure is a multivalued velocity—force relation determined by Coulomb's friction and by loads generated during operation of pump valves. Both the monotonic and nonmonotonic velocity—force relations are considered. A quasi-variational inequality formulation of the problem is proposed. The solution of the inequality amounts to finding the minimum of a convex nonsmooth functional at each time step by means of the Newmark difference time scheme, successive iterations and finite element discretization. The problem of functional minimization is reduced to construction of a sequence of smooth nonlinear programming problems by introducing the auxiliary variables and applying the augmented Lagrangian method. The proposed approach is used to study the longitudinal vibrations of sucker rod strings under near-real conditions. In such systems the most commonly occurring vibration modes are the stick-slip vibrations and the vibrations with natural force excited twice a cycle. The nonmonotonic character of the friction law leads to intensification of these vibrations. In the case of nonmonotonic friction law the stick-slip vibrations can occur even under the action of constant external forces.