An investigation of machine learning techniques to estimate minimum horizontal stress magnitude from borehole breakout

Abstract

Borehole breakout is a widely utilised phenomenon in horizontal stress orientation determination, and breakout geometrical parameters, such as width and depth, have been used to estimate both horizontal stress magnitudes. However, the accuracy of minimum horizontal stress estimation from borehole breakout remains relatively low in comparison to maximum horizontal stress estimation. This paper aims to compare and improve the minimum horizontal stress estimation via a number of machine learning (ML) regression techniques, including parametric and non-parametric models, which have rarely been explored. ML models were trained based on 79 laboratory data from published literature and validated against 23 field data. A systematic bias was observed in the prediction for the validation dataset whenever the horizontal stress value exceeded the maximum value in the training data. Nevertheless, the pattern was captured, and the removal of systematic bias showed that the artificial neural network is capable of predicting the minimum horizontal stress with an average error rate of 10.16% and a root mean square error of 3.87 MPa when compared to actual values obtained through conventional in-situ measurement techniques. This is a meaningful improvement considering the importance of in-situ stress knowledge for underground operations and the availability of borehole breakout data.