Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
720517 IFAC Proceedings Volumes 2007 6 Pages PDF
Abstract

During petroleum well drilling operations, the pressure gradient in the well has to be maintained within the pressure restrictions of the formation. The well pressure can be controlled by restricting the drilling fluid flow through a choke valve at the top of the well. This paper proposes a closed-loop control algorithm using a finite horizon nonlinear model predictive control scheme based on a low order well model for this problem. The algorithm is tested on a rigorous high order model.

Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Engineering Computational Mechanics