Realtime Drilling Optimization Software for Geothermal Wells
Developing a new detailed model for common drill bits (PDC) based on tracking cutter wear from rock/bit interactions and then design a system to optimize geothermal drilling based on real-time data from that model.
The project incorporates several modules to achieve a Real-time drilling optimization system with an emphasis on geothermal drilling.
Software output: The Realtime optimization for a foot ahead is seen at the following contour plots. The red dot is representative of the current realtime depth. The software suggests the green dot for the next foot of drilling.
A Novel PDC ROP model
The objective of this study is to improve the ROP estimation for PDC bits by introducing a novel ROP model for hard rocks. The effect of cutter geometry and wear flat areas (both PDC and stud) are integrated into the new PDC ROP model. The interfacial friction angle models for single cutter and full bit are presented and used to improve the cutter force and ROP model estimation accuracy. A novel PDC wear model is developed based on the physical work done by the cutter which integrates both the PDC and stud wear coefficients. This research has numerous potential applications in the drilling industry such as: developing or integrating into current drilling optimization software, autonomous drilling decision making, real-time optimization, and problem solver software.
Nano-Technology
Cement fluid loss can cause loss of cement quality and its functionality. A common cement system with fluid loss problems is a system containing weighting agents. Barite, which is used in cement to increase the slurry weight, is one example. In this research, the effect of barite nanoparticles (NPs) in different concentrations on cement fluid loss was investigated.
Barite NPs were generated via the dry grinding method using a high-energy ball grinder. The barite NPs were added to the cement slurry in various concentrations, and a low-pressure low temperature (LPLT) static fluid loss tester was used to measure the cement fluid loss in the laboratory.
It was observed that, as the nanoparticles concentration increases from 0 to 5 percent by weight of the total slurry, the average fluid loss decreases by about half. Results showed that about 50 percent filtration reduction can be achieved by replacing the 3% weight of normal barite with barite NPs in the cement slurry.
A 2-dimensional PDC Cutter Interaction visualization
In this Kernel, a model was developed to simulates the PDC bit cutter interaction. The cutter positions including the distance from the bit center and height are taken into account. The PDC cutter interaction model uses matrixes for simulating the position of cutters. The matrix is initialized with zero and is updated to new values taking the cutter's positions into account. The regions with higher cutter interactions are lighter (white) compares to regions with fewer interactions (black). The computer model was developed in R. The user can change the simulation resolution. Two visualizations are presented in this Kernel.