Synergistic effects of silica fume, nanomaterials and inorganic salts on the hydration and compressive strength of low-density oil well cement slurry

During offshore cementing at shallow depth, the low-temperature environment at the bottom of the sea and the low-density requirement of the cement slurry significantly hinder the strength development of oil well cement systems. Hence there is always a strong need to take various measures to enhance the strength development of low-density oil well cement systems. During this study, potential synergistic effects of silica fume, nanomaterials (C-S-H nano-seeds, nano-silica, nano-alumina), and inorganic salts (CaCl2, NaCl, Na2SiO3) to improve the strength of low-density well cement slurry were investigated. Water-to-cement ratio (w/c) was varied between 1.04 and 1.28 to obtain a constant slurry density of 1.5 g/cm3. Test results revealed that the addition of silica fume altered the rheology and flow behavior of low-density cement slurries, resulting in flat rheology profiles at high shear rates. The Bingham plastic model can describe the rheological behavior of cement slurries without silica fume, whereas the Power-law model is more suitable to cement slurries with silica fume. High-dosage silica fume (30 %) is shown to have similar acceleration capability as the strongest nanomaterial accelerator (i.e. C-S-H nano-seeds) at 2 % dosage. However, adding nanomaterials to silica-fume-enriched slurries cannot further increase the hydration rate of cement (i.e. no synergistic effect), possibly due to their similar acceleration mechanism. In contrast, adding chloride-based inorganic salts to silica-fume-enriched slurries further increased the hydration rate of cement significantly, exhibiting a strong synergistic effect. Based on the 7-day compressive strength test results at 15°C, the addition of silica fume or nanomaterials individually can increase the strength of neat cement by up to 92 %, while the combined addition of silica fume and NaCl can increase its strength by 306 %.