Water Jet Perforation: A New Method for Completing and Stimulating In Situ Leaching Wells

Details

• Personal Author:
  Krawza WG ; Savanick, George A. ; Krawza WG ; Savanick, George A.
• Description:
  The Bureau of Mines has designed, fabricated, and field tested a water jet cutting device capable of perforating nonmetallic well casings for the purpose of completing or stimulating in situ uranium leaching wells. The device is lowered into the wellbore, where it issues a high-velocity water jet that penetrates either a polyvinyl chloride or fiberglass casing, cement, and from 1 to 4 feet into the surrounding uraniferous sandstone. The resulting perforations allow leaching solution to pass between the sandstone and the wellbore. This report describes the water jet perforator, tells how it is used, presents cost data, and discusses the results of laboratory and field tests. The tests were designed to (1) determine the optimum operating conditions for water jet perforation, (2) assess the effects of changes in these conditions, (3) evaluate the performance of the water jet perforator under actual conditions, and (4) compare this method with other methods of well completion. These tests showed that water jet perforation is superior to conventional well completion methods for selectively achieving communication between the wellbore and adjacent sand while maintaining sand control, for restoring permeability lost through wellbore damage, for stimulating poorly performing wells for completing wells with casings that have inside diameters as small as 2 inches, and for extending the effective well diameter. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Occupational Health Safety
• Series:
  Mining Publications   ; Mining Publications  
• Subseries:
  Report of Investigations ; Report of Investigations
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Conference Publications ; Case Report ; Conference Publications ; Case Report
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) ; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  TCRC - Twin Cities Research Center ; TCRC - Twin Cities Research Center
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health ; Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America ; North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-30
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:10006700
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1981
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:53fad4d4b9f3552a1db04f074f0514da81a880a20fd53a85077e76d746cee30ce1b336518a8375aa325b61c548813c6a285d7d4aa6bf81400dea76c9bf09d020
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/237877/cdc_237877_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 4.04 MB ]