Eighth International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Mechanism Study of Borehole Instability in Carbonate Reservoir through Discrete Element Modeling
Publication: Geo-Congress 2019: Geoenvironmental Engineering and Sustainability (GSP 312)
ABSTRACT
Carbonate reservoirs are characterized by extremely heterogeneity having fissures and vugs in them. Incidents are common practice when drilling through carbonate formation such as the loss of circulation and borehole breakouts. In drilling through fractured carbonate formation in North China, excessive volume of cavings accompanied significant volume of the mud loss were observed. Numerous laboratory experiments and the numerical simulation are conducted to better understand the mechanism of this drilling instability. Microstructure analysis of outcrop carbonate rock showed weak inter-granular bonding and abundance of microcracks existed in carbonate rock. Mechanical testing had been also conducted to obtain mechanical properties of carbonate rock. Through our work, discrete element method (DEM)-based square-shaped hollow model was established to further investigate the mechanism of the drilling instability of carbonate rock. Our modeling results showed that fluid invasion played the main role in detachment of particles and particle erosion was accompanied with few shear-induced microcracks. The borehole breakout orientation was along the maximum horizontal principal stress direction. The influence of drilling mud density on instability patterns was further analyzed through our DEM modeling.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Geo-Congress 2019: Geoenvironmental Engineering and Sustainability (GSP 312)
Pages: 51 - 61
Editors: Christopher L. Meehan, Ph.D., University of Delaware, Sanjeev Kumar, Ph.D., Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Miguel A. Pando, Ph.D., University of North Carolina Charlotte, and Joseph T. Coe, Ph.D., Temple University
ISBN (Online): 978-0-7844-8214-8
Copyright
© 2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Mar 21, 2019
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Boring
- Carbonation
- Chemical processes
- Chemistry
- Construction engineering
- Construction methods
- Continuum mechanics
- Cracking
- Discrete element method
- Drilling
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering mechanics
- Environmental engineering
- Fracture mechanics
- Geomechanics
- Geotechnical engineering
- Hydraulic engineering
- Hydraulic structures
- Methodology (by type)
- Models (by type)
- Mud
- Numerical methods
- Numerical models
- Reservoirs
- Soil mechanics
- Soils (by type)
- Solid mechanics
- Water and water resources
Authors
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