X.P. Shen, A. Diaz, T. Sheehy ,
The International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences, Vol.16, No.3, pp. 73-74, 2011, DOI:10.3970/icces.2011.016.073
Abstract This paper presents a case study for the design of a mud-weight window (MWW) with three-dimensional (3D) finite-element (FE) tools for subsalt wells. The trajectory of the target well penetrates a 20,000-ft thick salt body.
The numerical solution of the MWW for the target wellbore consists two parts: the shear failure gradient (SFG) and the fracture gradient (FG). Because the pore pressure and material distributions are nonuniform, the calculations of SFG and FG must be performed with submodeling techniques for a given depth point at a smaller local scale. A numerical scheme has been proposed… More >