Abstract
In drilling process of oil wells, the drilling fluid such as mud keeps the drill bit cool and clean during drilling, with suspending drill cuttings and lubricating a drill bit. In this paper, a commercial CFD package(ANSYS Fluent 15.0) was used to solve the hydrodynamic force and evaluate mud mixing time in the mud mixing tank on offshore drilling platforms. Prediction of power consumption in co-rotating and counter-rotating models has been compared with results of Nagata's correlation equation. This research shows the hydrodynamic effect inside the two phase mud mixing tank according to rotating directions(co-rotating and counter-rotating). These results, we can conclude that the co-rotating direction of the two shafts with mixing blade in the mud mixing tank can be a preferable in power consumption and mixing time reduction.
