Fracture Toughness of HSLA Coiled Tubing Used in Oil Wells Operations

Abstract

Coiled Tubings are thin walled steel tubes of 25–89 mm diameter and thousands meters long, used in the oil industry for production and maintenance services. They suffer plastic deformation during unwinding of the reel, passing through a goosneck arch guide and an injector unit. Strain levels are of 2–3%, making the tubing fail by low cycle fatigue in around 100 wrap–unwrap cycles. As coiled tubing material generally behaves in a ductile manner at surface and down well temperatures, the R curve has to be known to make instability analyses. J-R curves were determined to characterize the fracture toughness of nonused coiled tubing, using nonstandard specimens due to difficulties with their small thickness and diameters. Different crack lengths and crack locations were tested to analyze the 2C0/W ratio and the influence of the longitudinal weld. The R curves obtained show crack arc length dependence and are influenced by the position of the longitudinal weld.