Measuring Wellbore

Tortuosity
Pradeep Ashok
RAPID, The University of Texas at Austin
 Background: RAPID

RAPID is an interdisciplinary group of researchers and students

from multiple engineering disciplines (petroleum, mechanical, and
aerospace) with these objectives and goals:

• deliver automation solutions for any and

every aspect of well construction (drilling,
cementing, completion / stimulation,
production?)
• reducing drilling/completion time and cost by
> 50%
• reducing the number of individuals at the rig
site by > 50%.

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 RAPID Sponsors

3
 RAPID Management Team
Dr. Mitch Dr. Pradeep Dr. Dongmei “Maggie” External Advisors & Collaborators
Pryor Ashok Chen
Dr. Adrian Ambrus Dr. Behcet Acikmese
(IRIS) (UW)

Dr. Roman Shor Dr. Ali Karimi

Dr. Eric van (QRI)
Dr. John Foster (UoC)
Oort

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 Graduate Student Group (2017-2018)

Can Pehlivanturk John D’Angelo Melissa Lee Gurtej Saini Carolyn Powell Qifan Gu
Mechanical Engineering Mechanical Engineering Mechanical Engineering Petroleum Engineering Mechanical Engineering
Petroleum Engineering
Directional Drilling Tortuosity Index Intelligent Mechanization: Twinning Managed Pressure Drilling
Data Analytic: Drilling and
Snubbing Automation
Completions

Sercan Gul Katy Hanson Abhinav Sinha Parham Pournazari Tim Chan Runqi Han
Petroleum Engineering Petroleum Engineering Mechanical Engineering Mechanical Engineering Civil Engineering Petroleum Engineering
Automated Rheology Isogeometric Analysis NOVOS Machine Learning: Automated HIL Simulator Cuttings Sensor
Measurement Event Detection

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 Drilling Automation Research

RAPID R&D Focus Areas

Modeling, Undergraduate
(Real-Time) Intelligent
simulation, and Programs
Monitoring, mechanization,
Automation empirical
data analytics, automation,
control systems validation in
and “Big Data” and equipment
downhole
issues re-design
environments

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 Agenda

▪ Motivation
▪ Prior Work
▪ A New Tortuosity Metric
– Calculation Methodology

▪ Application
▪ Conclusions

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 Agenda

▪ Motivation
▪ Prior Work
▪ A New Tortuosity Metric
– Calculation Methodology

▪ Application
▪ Conclusions

8
 Motivation: Wellbore Quality Matters

Increased Well Cost $/bbl Decreased Well Production

▪ Stuck pipe /casing
▪ Poor zonal isolation
▪ Early tool failure
▪ Torque and drag
– Max. drillable length
▪ Significantly reduced hydrocarbon
bbl recovery
$ – Poor proppant displacement
– Inadequate fracture growth
– Fracture reorientation

Early detection and prevention of

excess tortuosity is key.

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 Agenda

▪ Motivation
▪ Prior Work
▪ A New Tortuosity Metric
– Calculation Methodology

▪ Application
▪ Conclusions

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 Literature Review: Dogleg Severity

DLS – is an estimate of the

overall curvature of a well
path between two
consecutive survey stations

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 Literature Review: Friction Factor Back Calculation

A method for quantifying wellbore

tortuosity based on friction factors

𝑇𝐴 is the tortuosity of the as-drilled well, 𝑇𝑃 is

the Planned Tortuosity of the well, 𝑇𝐿 is the
Large-scale tortuosity of the as-drilled well, and
𝑇𝑀 is the Micro-Tortuosity of the as-drilled well

Gaynor et al. (2002)

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 Literature Review: Tortuosity Parameter

Effective Diameter is the maximum

Where 𝑆 is the along-hole length
of the wellbore section of
interest, 𝐿 is the straight-line
distance between the ends of the
section
diameter of a straight cylinder that
can be inserted into the section
without distorting it (barely touching
the inner walls)

Bang, et al., Analysis and Quantification of Wellbore Tortuosity, 2017

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 Literature Review: Directional Difficulty Index

Along Hole Displacement (AHD), Measured Depth (MD), and True Vertical
Depth (TVD)

IADC/SPE 59196 THE DIRECTIONAL DIFFICULTY INDEX - A NEW APPROACH TO PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKING

14 Oag, Alistair W., and Mike Williams.

 Literature Review: Strain Gauge DLS Index
SPE -173039-MS
Chris Marland and Jeremy Greenwood

𝑅𝑐
𝑀
𝑅𝑐 =
𝐸𝐼
𝜃𝐷𝐿𝑆
The dogleg severity of a curved well Where M is the bending moment associated
segment is a driving factor in the with the curve, 𝐼 is the moment of inertia of
bending moment associated with the the cylindrical pipe, and E is the pipe’s
segment. modulus of elasticity

Strain gauges measure bending moment at a particular location along the BHA. These
measurements are used to approximate the DLS at that location. The difference between this
approximation and the planned DLS provides a quantification of local tortuosity.

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Literature Review: Elastic Energy Scaled Tortuosity Index

Scaled Tortuosity Index: The total elastic energy required to move the entire string to final depth

𝑑𝑙 is a small length of pipe, H() is Heaviside step function** applied to the derivative of bending moment
𝑀𝑙 (𝐷𝑚 ) with respect to the measured depth from surface 𝐷𝑚 . This is integrated from 0 to TD to
determine the energy to move a particular segment from surface to TD, and integrated again to get this
sum across all drill string segments.
SPE -151274
Sjoerd Brands and Ross Lowdon

**H(x) will equal x for x > 0, and 0 otherwise.

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 Literature Review Summary
Deviation From
Requires Additional Local/Overall Constant Curvature Requires High
Tortuosity Method Planned or Smooth
Sensors Metric Assumption Resolution Survey
Path

Dogleg Severity No Overall Yes No Planned

Friction Factor Back

Yes Overall No No Planned
Calculation (FFBC)

Tortuosity Parameter Yes Local No Yes Smooth

Elastic Energy and Scaled

Yes Overall No Yes Smooth
Tortuosity Index

Strain Gauge DLS Index Yes Local No No Planned

Directional Difficulty Index No Overall Yes No N/A

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 Agenda

▪ Motivation
▪ Prior Work
▪ A New Tortuosity Metric
– Calculation Methodology

▪ Application
▪ Conclusions

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 Desired Characteristics of a Tortuosity Metric

▪ Real time
▪ Three dimensional
– Delineate Azm. & Inc. tortuosity
▪ Holistic assessment of well path
▪ No additional sensors
– Azm., Inc., and MD only
▪ Correlates with “Torque and Drag”
▪ Robust for varying survey intervals
▪ Planned versus unplanned tortuosity

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 TI : Calculation
Veins in Human Eyeball
Identifying Individual Turns in
Tortuous Veins

Healthy Person Hypertensive Patient

20 Grisan, E. et al., A Novel Method for Automatic Grading of Retinal Vessel Tortuosity, IEEE 2008
 TI : Calculation

𝑛−1 1 𝑛 𝐿𝑐𝑠𝑖
𝑇𝐼 = σ𝑖=1( − 1)
𝑛 𝐿𝑐 𝐿𝑥𝑠𝑖

𝑛 = Number of curve turns 𝑛𝑖

𝑛𝑖+1

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 TI : Calculation

𝑛−1 1 𝑛 𝐿𝑐𝑠𝑖
𝑇𝐼 = σ𝑖=1( − 1)
𝑛 𝐿𝑐 𝐿𝑥𝑠𝑖

𝐿𝑐𝑠𝑖 = Arc length of curve turn

𝐿𝑥𝑠𝑖 = Chord length of curve turn 𝐿𝑐𝑠𝑖

𝐿𝑥𝑠𝑖

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 TI : Calculation

𝑛−1 1 𝑛 𝐿𝑐𝑠𝑖
𝑇𝐼 = σ𝑖=1( − 1)
𝑛 𝐿𝑐 𝐿𝑥𝑠𝑖

𝐿𝑐 = Total curve length*

𝐿𝑐

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 TI: Calculation

𝑛−1 1 𝑛 𝐿𝑐𝑠𝑖
𝑇𝐼𝐼𝑛𝑐𝑙/𝐴𝑧𝑚 = σ𝑖=1( − 1)
𝑛 𝐿𝑐 𝐿𝑥𝑠𝑖

𝑇𝐼3𝐷 = 𝑇𝐼𝐼𝑛𝑐𝑙 2 + 𝑇𝐼𝐴𝑧𝑚 2

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 Variant of the Index

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 Variant of the Index

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 Variant of the Index

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 Variant of the Index

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 Additional Tweak

Preserving first curve turn:

𝑛−1 1 𝑛 𝐿 𝑛 1 𝑛 𝐿
𝑇𝐼 = σ𝑖=1( 𝑐𝑠𝑖 − 1) 𝑇𝐼 = σ𝑖=1( 𝑐𝑠𝑖 − 1)
𝑛 𝐿𝑐 𝐿𝑥𝑠𝑖 𝑛+1 𝐿𝑐 𝐿𝑥𝑠𝑖

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 Flowchart for Calculating 3D TI
Start
Case 1

Lxs1
Read directional file:
End of one Inc., Azm., M.D. Lcs1
cycle

Calculate del Inc., Case 2

del Azm., del M.D.
Lcs1 Lxs1

Inc.: 2nd Azm.: 2nd

inflection inflection Lcs1
Case 3
point? point?
No Yes Yes No
Lxs1 Lxs2
T.I. Inc. Calculate Calculate T.I. Azm.
Lcs2 Lcs3
= prev. new T.I. new T.I. = prev.
value Inc. Azm. value
Lxs3

Calculate new T.I. 3D

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 TI Increase Along the Path

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 Unplanned Tortuosity

▪ Tortuosity Index gives us a way to quantify the overall tortuosity of a well

▪ Need a way of filtering out “intended” tortuosity to better determine the
directional drilling performance

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 Comparison with Planned Trajectory

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 Agenda

▪ Motivation
▪ Prior Work
▪ A New Tortuosity Metric
– Calculation Methodology

▪ Application
▪ Conclusions

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 Higher T.I. Corresponds to Early Equipment Failures

Well 1 Note: scales are not the same Well 2 Black: low risk
Blue: moderate risk
Red: high risk

Blue: Azm
Black: Inc
Purple: 3D

Two instances of motor failures @ 18,611ft., @16,003ft.

No instance reported

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 Higher T.I. Corresponds to Early Equipment Failures
Well 3 Note: scales are not the same Well 4
Black: low risk
Blue: moderate risk
Red: high risk

Blue: Azm
Black: Inc
Purple: 3D

LWD failure @17,923ft, @15,277ft, experienced LWD

No reported instances trouble @ 20,463ft, @15,080ft, @14,890ft, @11,667ft.

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 Preliminary Analysis Summary (18 Wells)

Index No. of
Comments Failure Rate
Wells
3 of which has documented multiple equipment (MWD,
TI > 20 5 60%
motor, etc.) failures in lateral section
TI b/t
3 1 of them has reports of MWD failure in lateral section 33%
10~20
2 of which has a single report of MWD failure in lateral
TI <10 10 20%
section

Higher rate of equipment failures during drilling appears to be directly associated with
high tortuosity index.

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 Tortuosity Index Case Study (Student Internship)

▪ Analyzed tortuosity index with

three case studies
– Tortuosity Index and Production
– Tortuosity Index and Rod Pump
Reliability
– Tortuosity Index and Drilling Efficiency
▪ Utilized data from over 6000 wells
in one region

38 Courtesy: Hess Corporation

 Tortuosity Index Case Study (Student Internship)

▪ Overall Results:
– As Tortuosity Index increases, the average drilling cycle time per section
increases
– As Tortuosity Index increases, the average rod pump failures per well
increases
– As Tortuosity Index increases, the average initial production decreases
▪ A Tortuosity Index model could be used through a well’s planning,
execution, completion and production stages, linking different
engineering disciplines

39 Courtesy: Hess Corporation

 Comparison with Drag Model: Stiff String
Well 3
Well 1

Well 2

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 Comparison with Drag Model: Stiff String

— Well 1
— Well 2
— Well 3

— Well 1
— Well 2
— Well 3

— Well 1
— Well 2
— Well 3

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 Agenda

▪ Motivation
▪ Prior Work
▪ A New Tortuosity Metric
– Calculation Methodology

▪ Application
▪ Conclusions

42
 Conclusions

▪ Real time
▪ Three dimensional
– Delineate Azm. & Inc. tortuosity
▪ Holistic assessment of well path
▪ No additional sensors
– Azm., Inc., and MD only
▪ Correlates with “Torque and Drag”
▪ Robust for varying survey intervals
▪ Planned versus unplanned tortuosity

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 Acknowledgement

▪ Thanks to John D’ Angelo, Alex Zhou, Dandan Zheng, and the

RAPID research team.
▪ Thanks to RAPID sponsors: Hess, ConocoPhillips, Apache,
Pioneer for providing us with data for the analysis

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 Thank You

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