Study on the Low-Temperature Rheology of Polar Drilling Fluid and Its Regulation Method

Drilling fluid is the blood of drilling engineering. In the polar drilling process, the ultra-low temperature environment puts high demands on the rheological performance of drilling fluids. In this paper, the effects of temperature, ice debris concentration and weighting agent on the rheological properties of drilling fluids were studied. It was found that the lower the temperature and the higher the ice debris concentration, the higher the drilling fluid viscosity, but when the ice debris concentration was below 2%, the drilling fluid rheology hardly changed. Secondly, the low temperature rheological properties of drilling fluid were adjusted by three different methods: base fluid ratio, organoclay, and polymers (dimer acid, polymethacrylate, ethylene propylene copolymer, and vinyl resin). The results showed that the base fluid rheological performance was optimal when the base fluid ratio was 7:3. Compared with polymers, organoclay has the most significant improvement on the low temperature rheological performance of drilling fluid. The main reason is that organoclay can transform the drilling fluid from Newtonian to non-Newtonian fluid, which exhibits excellent shear dilution of drilling fluid. The organoclay is also more uniformly dispersed in the oil, forming a denser weak gel mesh structure, so it is more effective in improving the cuttings carrying and suspension properties of drilling fluids. However, the drilling fluid containing polymer additives is still a Newtonian fluid, which cannot form a strong mesh structure at ultra-low temperatures, and thus cannot effectively improve the low-temperature rheological performance of drilling fluid. In addition, when the amount of organoclay is 2%, the improvement rate of the yield point reaches 250% at −55 °C, which can effectively improve the cuttings carrying and suspension performance of drilling fluid at ultra-low temperature.