An appraisal of procedures to determine the flow curve of cement slurries

The performance of protocols usually employed for the rheological characterization of oil well cement slurries is investigated. To this end two cement slurries were employed, namely Paste A and Paste B. The API procedure is addressed and a modification to it is investigated. Flow curves are determined with the aid of a rotational rheometer using three different methods (ramp up/down, ramp down, and minimum-viscosity). The API procedure yielded flow curves that significantly overestimate (Paste A) or underestimate (Paste B) the viscosity throughout the whole range of shear rate. The deviations become particularly dramatic in the low end of this range and for Paste B, clearly because the steady state is not attained due to a thixotropic behavior. The investigated modification to the API procedure resulted in flow curves similar to the ones based on the minimum-viscosity method.