Bidirectional Fluid-Structure Coupling Analysis of Steering Tool Performance with Spring Stress Consideration

This paper investigates the automatic steering tool in the integrated injection-production tubing string and proposes an analysis method for bidirectional fluid-structure coupling problems, incorporating spring stress accumulation. The pre-stress field feature in ABAQUS software is used to model the variation in leaf spring stress. A ball valve acts as an intermediary, and FLUENT software is employed to simulate the transfer of forces between the flow field and the ball valve’s motion. The results indicate that the transition response time from steam injection to oil production under the designed operating conditions is approximately 0.0787 s. The motion path of the ball valve aligns with expectations, exhibiting stable movement. Additionally, an indoor simulation of the steering tool’s opening and closing performance was conducted, with high-speed cameras used for experimental validation. The simulation and experimental results show a discrepancy of less than 15%, confirming the accuracy of the numerical model and providing theoretical support for the practical application of integrated injection-production tubing string technology.OPEN ACCESS Received: 06/11/2024 Accepted: 01/04/2025 Published: 30/06/2025