**Abstract**

Mechanical pipe sticking is the important reasons which has a direct impact on the drilling process efficiency. The problems of pipe sticking during drilling, and the other problems associated with this case is a crucial task that must be early identified to find the causing factors before any further action. The main objectives of this study are to predict and specify the main causes of these problems through modeling and simulation processes. Consequently, the (ANSYS Workbench/2019 R3) Commercial version has been adopted for this analysis purposes. This analysis have been carried out based on the actual interaction and contact between the active working parts to simulate the actual process. In this simulation process, the non-deformable parts like drill pipe, and wellbore sleeve are considered (Masters), while deformable parts are (slaves). Simulation results approved that the pipe stick happened due to high values of generation stresses. The plot of maximum induced stresses shows that the generated stresses in the interaction zone between the outer surface of the drilling pipe and mud are (15) % more than in the other zones. Also, the probability of sticking during drilling can be predicted according to the relation between the drill depth with time and drag forces. It's concluded that for freeing the stuck pipe it's very necessary to predict the problems from the beginning. This type of analysis can assure the percentage accuracy for stuck pipe prediction is more than (70) %.

**Keywords:** modeling and analysis, pipe sticking, drill string, wellbore, FEM
