Water-Based Mud’s Rheological Properties Estimation Using Marsh Funnel

Abstract

Marsh funnel was considered as a quick quality-control instrument in oil well drilling, it measures mud viscosity in term of time as single point which cannot provide enough evidence to credit marsh funnel as a rheometer. This work attempts to modify the recent proposed procedures of handling marsh funnel itself and its data, and provides a new procedure to indicate gel strength via marsh funnel. In this study nine samples of water-based mud were drained through six funnel geometries, the drained volume versus associated time were recorded under many waiting categories such as drain immediately, drain after 1 minute, drain after 5 minutes, and drain after 10 minutes. The shear rate and shear stress within funnels were calculated considered them as capillary viscometer methodology, along with statistical analysis was implemented via Minitab. The study figures out two models to estimate flowing parameters and one method to indicate thixotropic property; the flowing parameters models were estimated the rheological properties in graphical and statistical manners; both models achieved high level of accuracy. In addition to, the new approach to indicate the gel strength perfectly was provided, the method was found quite precise using one proportion test. At the lights of the study findings, the Author thought it has become common today to accept the marsh funnel as standalone rheometer.