Abstract
Drilling directional and horizontal wellbores plays an important role in the exploitation of hydrocarbons. In the case of long operated and unconventional fields the importance of this type of drilling is fundamental. The horizontal and directional drilling technologies are also applicable in other fields. Directional and horizontal holes are among other various types of drilling under buildings, microtunnels, injection and storage holes. This technology is also used in obtaining coal-bed methane and in underground coal gasification methods.Compared to holes with vertical axes, directional drilling is a much more complex issue. The curvature of the wellbore's axis, passing through the horizontally stratified rock mass, causes the conditions around its cross section to be strongly anisotropic. Not infrequently, the same rock material of each layer exhibits anisotropic properties. Ensuring the stability of the well is very difficult under such conditions.The proper determination of the state of stress, strain and displacement of the rock mass around the hole is critical in the design of directional holes. Numerical analysis tools which take into account the structure of the rock mass and the mechanical properties of rocks along the well trajectory are used for this purpose.The article presents numerical simulations of changes of the rock mass state around a directional well. The calculations were conducted with various material models of rock: the linear-elastic model, the linear-elastic with regard to pore fluid flow model, the elastic – plastic model, the Drucker-Prager cap model with pore fluid flow, the concrete damage plasticity model (CDP), and the cracked material model. The impact of primary pressure, lamination and anisotropy of the rock mass are also included in the calculation. Based on the results of the calculations we analyze the impact of the behavior of rocks on the wellbore's stability.
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