Abstract: In the development of horizontal wells for easy production of sand, it is difficult to achieve good sand control effect by using adaptive flow-regulating water-control screen alone. It is necessary to study a new completion technology combining adaptive flow control and gravel packing. To this end, design and optimization were performed for experimental process parameters affecting the displacement, sand ratio, flushing ratio, loss of the transported gravel, and viscosity of the sand carrying fluid. According to the design results of the test process parameters, a ground-based simulation experimental device was independently designed and built for adaptive flow control and gravel packing in horizontal wells, based on which the experiment was performed twice. The test results show that the optimized low-density gravel solves the problem of limited packing displacement. Under the optimized packing parameters, the packing efficiency reached 100%. The axial seepage resistance of the packed gravel is much larger than its radial seepage resistance, realizing the function of an annulus packer, and the function of water control and oil stabilization of this flow-regulating water-control device is fully exerted. Eventually, reasonable ranges of construction parameters are obtained to provide effective guidance for field applications.

Key words: horizontal well, flow-regulating water-control, gravel packing, well completion, experiment, parameter optimization