Horizontal wellbore temporary plugging and diversion fracturing serves as a critical technical approach for the economical and efficient development of unconventional oil and gas reservoirs. A degradable knot temporary plugging agent (TPA) offers distinct advantages for perforation plugging in horizontal wellbore; however, existing research remains limited, and the influence of knot TPA parameters on perforation temporary plugging mechanisms has not been clearly elucidated. This study employs a CFD-DBCM coupled model to conduct numerical simulations of temporary plugging with a knot TPA. The simulation is validated through visualized temporary plugging experiments, followed by an optimization analysis focusing on the flank length and structural configurations of the knot TPA. Research indicates that, when the flank is less than 1.6 times the central diameter, its plugging capacity is significantly compromised. Once the flank exceeds 1.6 times the central diameter, the total plugging performance of the knot TPA improves to a certain extent, and the temporary plugging capacity for the upper perforations increases particularly significantly. When flank lengths are identical, a knot TPA with uniformly distributed four flanks exhibits superior plugging performance compared to configurations featuring only single or double flanks. Given formation heterogeneity, a temporary plugging simulation analysis of the combined knot TPA was conducted. The results indicate that employing a combined knot TPA achieves a higher valid plugging rate compared to using only one type of knot TPA, with valid plugging accounting for the majority of cases. Field application of knot TPA was conducted in the fracturing stage of an oil well in Zhejiang, and the changes in on-site data verified the effectiveness of the temporary plugging technique of knot TPA.
Xue et al. (Fri,) studied this question.