• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.217-228
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• 2024

During deep drilling, confined aquifers can present various challenges such as the inability to remove cuttings, rapid groundwater influx, and mud loss. Particularly in flowing well conditions, it is essential to apply the suitable mud density since the aquifer can generates an overpressurized condition. This paper proposes a method for determining the suitable mud density while drilling (SMD) through confined aquifers using mud window analysis and applies it to a case study. The minimum mud density at each depth, which represents the lower limit of the mud window, is determined by the equivalent mud density pore pressure gradient (or by adding a trip margin) at that depth. The pore pressure gradient of a confined aquifer can be calculated using the piezometric level or well head pressure of the aquifer. As the borehole reaches the confined aquifer, there is a significant increase in pore pressure gradient, which gradually decreases with increasing depth. The SMD to prevent a kick can be determined as the maximum value among the minimum mud densities in the open hole section. After entering the confined aquifer, SMD is maintained as the minimum mud density at the top of the aquifer during the drilling of the open hole section. Additionally, appropriate casing installation can reduce the SMD, minimizing the risk of mud loss or invasion into the highly permeable aquifer.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.281-293
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• 2021

Uncertainties in geomechanical input parameters which mainly related to inappropriate data acquisition and estimation due to lack of sufficient calibration information, have led wellbore instability not yet to be fully understood or addressed. This paper demonstrates a workflow of employing Quantitative Risk Assessment technique, considering these uncertainties in terms of rock properties, pore pressure and in-situ stresses to makes it possible to survey not just the likelihood of accomplishing a desired level of wellbore stability at a specific mud pressure, but also the influence of the uncertainty in each input parameter on the wellbore stability. This probabilistic methodology in conjunction with Monte Carlo numerical modeling techniques was applied to a case study of a well. The response surfaces analysis provides a measure of the effects of uncertainties in each input parameter on the predicted mud pressure from three widely used failure criteria, thereby provides a key measurement for data acquisition in the future wells to reduce the uncertainty. The results pointed out that the mud pressure is tremendously sensitive to UCS and SHmax which emphasize the significance of reliable determinations of these two parameters for safe drilling. On the other hand, the predicted safe mud window from Mogi-Coulomb is the widest while the Hoek-Brown is the narrowest and comparing the anticipated collapse failures from the failure criteria and breakouts observations from caliper data, indicates that Hoek-Brown overestimate the minimum mud weight to avoid breakouts while Mogi-Coulomb criterion give better forecast according to real observations.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.201-210
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• 2022

This paper presents a study regarding the influence of various water levels on the characteristics of subgrade mud pumping through a self-developed test instrument. The characteristics of mud pumping are primarily reflected by axial strain, excess pore water pressure, and fine particle migration. The results show that the axial strain increases nonlinearly with an increase in cycles number; however, the increasing rate gradually decreases, thus, an empirical model for calculating the axial strain of the samples is presented. The excess pore water pressure increases rapidly first and then decreases slowly with an increase in cycles number. Furthermore, the dynamic stress within the soil first rapidly decreases and then eventually slows. The results indicate that the axial strain, excess pore water pressure, and the height and weight of the migrated fine particles decrease significantly with a low water level. In this study, when the water level is 50 mm lower than the subgrade soil surface, the issue of subgrade mud pumping no longer exist.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.23 no.4_2
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• pp.617-626
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• 2020

The drilling mud is essentially used in oil and gas development. There are several roles of using the drilling mud, such as cleaning the bottomhole, cooling and lubricating the drill bit and string, transporting the cuttings to the surface, keeping and adjusting the wellbore pressure, and preventing the collapse of the wellbore. The fragments from rocks and micro-sized bubbles generated by the high pressure are mixed in the drilling mud. The systems to separate those mixtures and to keep the uniformly maintained quality of drilling mud are required. In this study, the simulation is conducted to verify the performance of the mud tank's agitation capacity. The primary role of the mud tank is the mixing of mud at the surface with controlling the mud condition. The container type is chosen as a mud tank pursuing efficient transport and better management of equipment. The single- and two-phase simulations about the agitation in the mud tank are performed to analyze and identify the inner flow behavior. The convergence of results is obtained for the vertical- and axis-direction velocity vector fields based on the grid-dependency tests. The mixing time analysis depending on the multiphase flow conditions indicates that the utilization of a two-stepped impeller with a smaller size provides less time for mixing. This study's results are expected to be utilized as the preliminary data to develop the mixing and integrating equipment of the onshore drilling mud system.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.183-194
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• 2017

When a borehole is drilled, the load distributed by the removal is taken to re-establish equilibrium. As a result, the stresses around the borehole is redistributed. If there is no hydrostatic support pressure by drilling fluid (mud) introduced into the borehole, failure in the formation may take place. The mud pressure boundary that keeps the borehole stable is defined as a mud window. To predict the potential for failures around the borehole, a series of numerical analysis were performed and compared with a mud window. The effect of failure criterion and the intial stress ratio adopted on the mud window was also studied.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2012.10a
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• pp.762-763
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• 2012

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.31 no.12
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• pp.71-76
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• 2015

Recently, people are increasingly interested in horizontal directional drilling (HDD) to construct oil and gas pipeline and utility pipeline in the urban area as one of trenchless methods. One of major issues during the HDD is the collapse of borehole, which may be the potential causes of ground collapse. This study investigated the effect of mud pressure on the borehole stability, using finite element analysis. Since the borehole is being drilled with a certain angle, three dimensional analysis should be performed. The borehole stability was examined by applying two different types of mud pressures, i.e., uniform and non-uniform, to the exterior surface of borehole. The results show that the high mud pressure at the beginning of drilling, i.e., at shallow depth, causes the borehole collapse, whereas the borehole was stable even at high mud pressure as the drilling depth increases. It can be said that the determination of maximum mud pressure is strongly related to the drilling depth.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.69 no.5
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• pp.537-545
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• 2019

Stress analysis of bottom-hole rock has to be considered with much care to further understand rock fragmentation mechanism and high penetration rate. This original study establishes a fully coupled simulation model and explores the effects of overburden pressure, horizontal in-situ stresses, drilling mud pressure, pore pressure and temperature on the stress distribution in bottom-hole rock. The research finds that in air drilling, as the well depth increases, the more easily the bottom-hole rock is to be broken. Moreover, the mud pressure has a great effect on the bottom-hole rock. The bigger the mud pressure is, the more difficult to break the bottom-hole rock is. Furthermore, the maximum principal stress of the bottom-hole increases as the mud pressure, well depth and temperature difference increase. The bottom-hole rock can be divided into three main regions according to the stress state, namely a) three directions tensile area, b) two directions compression areas and c) three directions compression area, which are classified as a) easy, b) normal and c) hard, respectively, for the corresponding fragmentation degree of difficulty. The main contribution of this paper is that it presents for the first time a thorough study of the effect of related factors, including stress distribution and temperature, on the bottom-hole rock fracture rather than the well wall, using a thermo-poroelastoplasticity model.

• Advances in environmental research
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.159-171
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• 2017

A successful oil well drilling depends largely on a good mud Program. During drilling, mud provides sufficient hydrostatic pressure, removes drill cuttings and cools drill bits. Mud additives are always required to provide sufficient hydrostatic pressure to ensure borehole stability. Barium Sulphate ($BaSO_4$) also known as barite is the prevalent weighting material but there is needed to develop local materials to augment the use of Barite. The present search is concerned on the early Carboniferous succession exposed in Um Bogma Formation, west central Sinai, Egypt as a new weighting agent in drilling fluids. The increases in the cost of drilling fluids and a shortage of using barite have introduced the locale dolomite as alternative weighting materials. The rheological properties of mud drilling samples weighted by local dolomite samples are being examined and investigated to know its potential to be used as a weighting material in drilling mud. Two mud samples were prepared which comprised of fresh water, caustic soda, bentonite and the weighting material. The weighting materials are added to achieve the required density. The first sample: Water-based mud with commercial barite of density between 10.00 lb/gm and 18.00 lb/gm. The second sample: Water-based mud with dolomite of density between 10.00 lb/gm and 18.00 lb/gm. These samples were analyzed and the density, rheological properties, aging of barite and dolomite and solid contents were investigated. At 10.00 lb/gm, the yield point of dolomite was $20.00lb/100ft^2$ and barite $22.00lb/100ft^2$ while the 10 second gel strength of dolomite was $30.00lb/100ft^2$ and $22.00lb/100ft^2$ for barite. Similarly, little difference was observed in plastic and apparent viscosities. At 10.00 lb/gm, the plastic and apparent viscosities of dolomite were 8.00 cp and 20.00 cp while barite was 8.00 cp and 24.00 cp. The result show that dolomite mud sample gave a little higher yield point and gel strength than barite mud sample. Therefore, dolomite has the potential to be used as weighting material in drilling mud in place of barite thereby enhancing the local content initiative of the government. When dolomite is sourced locally and used it will reduce overall mud and drilling costs.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.204-213
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• 2008

This paper presents the analysis about the stability of the Pohang deep geothermal borehole drilled in 2006. Severe wellhole instability problems such as collapse and tight hole occurred in weak rocks while drilling. Optimal mud pressure (mud window) required to prevent instability problems during drilling is obtained from analysis on in-situ stress and rock strength. The window is bounded by vertical stress in its upper limit and by either collapse pressure or pore pressure in its lower limit. Mud window varies with different types of rocks. In the top-most semi-consolidated mudstone formation, no mud window can secure borehole stability. In some weak rock types (basic dyke and crystal tuff), the borehole pressure needs to be higher by $50{\sim}60%$ than hydrostatic pressure. That means a mud density of 1.5 g/$cm^3$ or higher should be applied during drilling in order to prevent excessive collapse around the borehole.