Drilling Performance Optimization Based on Mechanical Specific Energy Technologies

Mechanical specific energy (MSE) has been widely used to quantify drilling efficiency and maximize rate of penetration (ROP) in oil and gas wells drilling. In this chapter, MSE models respectively for directional or horizontal drilling and rotating drilling with positive displacement motor (PDM) are established based on the evaluation of virtues and defects of available MSE models. Meanwhile methods for drilling performance prediction and optimization based on MSE technologies are presented. Field data presented in this chapter indicates that the developed MSE models estimate MSE values with a reasonable approximation in the absence of reliable torque measurements, the method for optimizing drilling parameters can estimate optimum WOB values with different RPM to drill a specific formation interval with PDM. It also show that the optimum WOB is low for rotating drilling with PDM compared with the conventional drilling without PDM, increasing WOB does not always increase ROP but is more likely to decrease ROP. The drilling performance prediction and optimization methods based on MSE technologies could be effectively used to maximize ROP and allow operators to drill longer and avoid unnecessary trips, and is worthy to be applied and promoted with highly diagnostic accuracy, effective optimizing and simple operation

The optimal design and operation strategy of renewable energy-CCHP coupled system applied in five building objects

Abstract(#br)Combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) is an economic and eco-friendly technology to mitigate energy issues with remarkable energy efficiency improvement. This study formulates a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model for a combined CCHP system coupled with renewable energy, i.e. RCCHP system, which is applied in five different buildings to evaluate the economic and environmental performance under two optimization modes. Net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR) and dynamic payback period (DPP) are introduced as economic indexes, while CO 2 emission reduction rate (CER) is considered as the environmental indicator to determine the optimal combination, capacity, and operation strategies for energy technologies. Results indicate that a combination of electricity purchased at valley period during night with power generated by the combined heating and power (CHP) unit coupled with wind turbine in peak period during daytime is cost-optimal which also enables higher energy efficiency. Meanwhile, the feed-in tariff as well as the uncoordinated electrical and thermal loads both show a significant impact on real-time operation strategies. Compared with the reference separate production (SP) system, the combined system shows better performance when applied to shopping mall under both optimization modes, e.g., with NPV up to 67.65 and 46.61 million RMB, IRR up to 20.70% and 25.10%, and the minimum DPP is 5.49 and 4.82 years under NPV and IRR maximization, respectively

Morphological Adjustment and Diversion Discharge Prediction in the Three Outlets Channel of the Jingjiang River

The Three Outlets Channel (TOC) consisting of three anabranching rivers formed due to natural avulsion by extremely high floods, is the primary water–sediment channel connecting the Jingjiang in the middle Yangtze River and Dongting Lake (the second largest freshwater lake in China). Since the impoundment of the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) in 2003, the decreasing diversion of runoff and sediment load of the TOC has an impact on the hydrological connectivity of the river–lake relation. Nonetheless, it lacks complete understanding on the diversion of runoff and sediment load, erosion and deposition amount, and the calculation method of diversion runoff in the TOC. We used remote sensing images, hydrological data, and channel topography to analyze the change in runoff and sediment load, channel morphology, local erosion and deposition amounts. The main results show that: (i) Meander cutoffs of the Lower Jingjiang accelerated the reduction process of the Ouchi River’s runoff and sediment load and the increase in the number of dry days. After the impoundment of the TGR, the diversion of sediment load of the TOC was greatly affected, but the decreasing trend of the runoff diversion slowed down. (ii) The morphological change of the inlet zone of Ouchi River is larger than that of Songzi River and Hudu River. The morphological evolution of the inlet area led to the change in the diversion of runoff and sediment load of the TOC. (iii) In the dry season, the water level drop in the inlet zone of the TOC leads to a decrease in the diversion discharge. Therefore, considering the water level drop and channel width adjustment in the inlet zone, five empirical formulae for the diversion discharge of the five hydrological stations in the TOC are proposed. These empirical formulae can be used as a short-term forecast for future changes in the hydrologic regime and the dynamics of the Jingjiang–Dongting Lake relation

Estimation of the Critical Seismic Acceleration for Three-Dimensional Rock Slopes

An analytical approach for the estimating of critical seismic acceleration of rock slopes was proposed in this study. Based on the 3D horn failure model, the critical seismic acceleration coefficient of rock slopes was conducted with the modified Hoek–Brown (MHB) failure criterion in the framework of upper-bound theory for the first time. The nonlinear Hoek–Brown failure criterion is incorporated into the three-dimensional rotational failure mechanism, and a generalized tangent technique is introduced and employed to convert the nonlinear Hoek–Brown failure criterion into a linear criterion. The critical seismic acceleration coefficients obtained from this study were validated by the numerical simulation results based on finite element limit analysis. The agreement showed that the proposed method is effective. Finally, design charts were provided for exceptional cases for practical use in rock engineering

A New Multi-Objective Optimization Design Method for Directional Well Trajectory Based on Multi-Factor Constraints

The design of the wellbore trajectory directly affects the construction quality and efficiency of drilling. A good wellbore trajectory is conducive to guiding on-site construction, which can effectively reduce costs and increase productivity. Therefore, further optimization of the wellbore trajectory is inevitable and necessary. Based on this, aiming at the three-segment, five-segment, double-increase-profile extended reach wells, this paper considered the constraints of formation wellbore stability; formation strength; and the determination of the deviation angle, deviation point position, and target range by the work of deflecting tools. In addition, the optimization objective function of the shortest total length of the wellbore, minimum error of the second target, lowest cost, minimum friction of the lifting and lowering string, and minimum torque of rotary drilling were proposed and established. The objective function of the longest extension limit of the horizontal section of the extended reach well is established. Taking the 14-8 block of the Lufeng Oilfield in the eastern South China Sea as an example, the actual data of the field were modeled, and the independence of the objective function was verified by comparing the number of non-inferior solutions of the two objective functions. By normalizing simplified to double-, three-, and four-objective functions, using a genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization results, it can be found that the new method of optimization design established in this paper has an obvious optimization effect compared with the original design

Study on the microstructures and tensile creep behaviors of extruded dilute Mg–Mn–Zn alloys

In this work, creep behaviors of dilute Mg–Mn–Zn alloys were investigated in extruded rods (ER) with bimodal grain microstructures and extruded sheets (ES) with homogeneous microstructures. Tensile creep tests were carried out at 423 K along the extrusion direction (ED) and transverse direction (TD). For brevity, the samples were named as ER-ED, ER-TD, ES-ED and ES-TD, respectively. All samples' creep is dominated by dislocation movement, and different types of dislocation slip are seen in the different samples under loading along each direction. For the ER sample, the creep mechanisms of the ER-ED sample were determined to be cross-slip accompanied by pyramidal slip. Differently, the creep of the ER-TD sample was dominated by basal slip and accompanied by grain boundary bulging, which induced the worst creep resistance. For the ES alloy, the creep mechanisms were pyramidal and cross-slip, but the cross-slip density of the ES-ED sample was higher. Accordingly, the creep test results indicated that the creep resistance was ranked in an order of ES-TD/ED > ER-ED » ER-TD. Furthermore, bimodal grain microstructure accelerates creep at a similar texture effect level, where grain boundary bulging was clearly observed, as well as the decreased KAM and increased fraction of M/HABs (middle-to-high angle boundaries). These typical softening characteristics might be responsible for weakening the ER-ED sample from the highest room-temperature yield strength to the inferior creep resistance to ES-TD/ED samples, meaning the thermal instability of this strong heterogeneous microstructure

Estimation of the Critical Seismic Acceleration for Three-Dimensional Rock Slopes

An analytical approach for the estimating of critical seismic acceleration of rock slopes was proposed in this study. Based on the 3D horn failure model, the critical seismic acceleration coefficient of rock slopes was conducted with the modified Hoek–Brown (MHB) failure criterion in the framework of upper-bound theory for the first time. The nonlinear Hoek–Brown failure criterion is incorporated into the three-dimensional rotational failure mechanism, and a generalized tangent technique is introduced and employed to convert the nonlinear Hoek–Brown failure criterion into a linear criterion. The critical seismic acceleration coefficients obtained from this study were validated by the numerical simulation results based on finite element limit analysis. The agreement showed that the proposed method is effective. Finally, design charts were provided for exceptional cases for practical use in rock engineering

The Maximum-Allowable Well Depth While Drilling of Extended-Reach Wells Targeting to Offshore Depleted Reservoirs

In depleted offshore reservoirs, pore pressure declines and consequently horizontal in-situ stresses decrease as well. This causes a very limited well depth for extended-reach drilling targeting to offshore depleted reservoirs. In this paper, based on analyzing the safe mud weight window of the depleted offshore reservoirs, a model of predicting the Maximum Allowable Measured Depth (MAMD) for extended-reach drilling targeting to offshore depleted reservoirs is developed. Meanwhile, the numerical method of the model is proposed, and the key affecting factors of the MAMD are also investigated. The results show the pore pressure depletion has obvious effects on the MAMD. With the depletion of pore pressure, the safe mud weight window appears narrower and even disappears, consequently the predicted MAMD becomes shorter. For a normal regime depositional environment in the depleted reservoirs, it may be impossible to drill with conventional drilling method in the nearby directions of the maximum horizontal in-situ stress, while it may be much safer and attain a long MAMD when drilling in the directions near the minimum horizontal in-situ stress. Moreover, the MAMD will decrease with the increase of Poisson’s ratio and Biot’s parameter, and its response to Poisson’s ratio is more obvious. For a specific target depleted reservoir, the extended-reach drilling with a high borehole inclination may have a longer MAMD than that with a low borehole inclination. This paper presents a method for promoting the design of extended-reach drilling targeting to offshore depleted reservoirs

A New Mechanical Specific Energy Model for Composite Impact Drilling

Composite impact drilling technology is one of the important techniques to increase drilling speeds in deep hard formations. In order to evaluate the efficiency of drilling with a composite impactor in real time and effectively, and to further improve the drilling speed in deep formations, the mechanical specific energy (MSE) model of drilling with a composite impactor was studied. Based on previous theoretical studies on MSE, and considering the effect of the composite impactor on the axial and torsional impact of the drill bit during operation, a new MSE model for composite percussion drilling was established. The results show that the evaluation of the drilling efficiency by MSE obtained by this calculation model is consistent with the actual situation of a Lufeng X well. It can be more widely used in wells drilled with composite impact tools and meet the needs of field operations