Development and Performance Evaluation of an Intelligent Sand Control Screen Based on Polyphenylene Sulfide

Open hole combined with a sand filter pipe is the main development mode of an unconsolidated sandstone horizontal well, which causes problems such as shaft wall collapse, sand filter pipe blockage, and even damage. At present, the polyurethane intelligent sand control screen pipe can effectively solve these problems, but its application scope is limited by the downhole temperature and material strength. Therefore, the high-strength shape memory polyphenylene sulfide (SMPPPS) was synthesized by an indoor experiment, then the shape memory performance was analyzed, and the variation law of pore size with composition and processing technology was obtained. Finally, the performance of the SMPPPS intelligent screen was evaluated. It is found that (1) with the increase of the cross-linking agent content, the melt index and melt peak temperature of SMPPPS decrease rapidly at first and then remain unchanged; the cross-linking agent content is set at 4.5 wt %. (2) The shape memory performance of SMPPPS is good, and the recovery ratio can reach 99.8% at 110 °C in 11.8 min. (3) The relationship between the pore size distribution proportion of SMPPPS and the foaming agent content, pore enhancer content, temperature, and pressure is determined through experiments; the main distribution range of pore size increases with the increase of the foaming agent content and temperature and decreases with the increase of the pore enhancer content and pressure. When the foaming agent content is 0.5 wt %, the pore enhancer concentration is 10 wt %, the molding temperature is 320 °C, the molding pressure is 10 MPa, and the main distribution range of pore size is 80-320 μm. (4) The permeability of recovery SMPPPS with a compression ratio of 300% first increases slightly and then decreases slightly with the increase of flow, with a variation range of 420.5-463 mD; the compressive strength range is 9.5-11.4 MPa; the SMPPPS has good adaptability to downhole fluid; the sand retaining accuracy is higher than that of the screen sand filter pipe, but the blockage is more serious.