The Challenges of Coiled Tubing Failure Analysis

ABSTRACT

Although coiled tubing provides many commercial advantages to oil and gas operators, the severe cyclic plastic strain experienced by it in normal operation limits its life and presents unique challenges to the failure analyst. This paper will address those challenges, review the manufacturing process for coiled tubing, and systematically review the most common failure mechanisms affecting coiled tubing, including fatigue, corrosion fatigue, mechanical damage, microbiologically influenced corrosion, and environmentally assisted cracking. The paper will identify characteristic features for each of the failure mechanisms and distinguish them from the changes that normally occur in coiled tubing as a result of cyclic plastic strain.

Burns, M.G., Elliott, K., Kumar, P., Graham-Wright, T., Sutch, A., “The Challenges of Coiled Tubing Failure Analysis”, Materials Science & Technology 2016, October 23-27, 2016, Salt Lake City, UT.