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Assessment of Interplay of Mud Cake and Failure Criteria on the Lower Limit of Safe Borehole Pressure

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Abstract

Borehole instability is affected by heterogeneity of tectonic stresses, mud cake properties, and drilling fluid pressure. If the borehole pressure is greater than the safe upper limit pressure, it will lead to hydraulic fracture, and if it is less than the lower limit, it will lead to shear failure or borehole breakout. The purpose of this article is to calculate the lower limit of safe borehole pressure so that under this pressure, the borehole will not undergo shear failure. For this purpose, an analytical model is presented in which the effect of non-isotropic field stress, pore pressure changes and filter cake characteristics are considered. In the two-dimensional plane strain model, it is assumed that the mud cake has a perfect plastic behavior and is bonded to the borehole wall. By combining the elastic stress relations with shear failure criterion, close-form relations for the lower limit of safe borehole pressure and for 5 different failure criteria are obtained. According to the results, the presence of cake makes the stresses in the borehole wall more isotropic, and this strengthens the borehole against breakout. By increasing the thickness of the mud cake by 4 mm, the borehole pressure required to inhibit breakout is reduced by an average of 13.5%, and if the mud cake permeability increases 100 times, the minimum required pressure will increase by an average of 65%. If the ratio of in situ stresses increases from 2.6 to 3, the lower limit of safe borehole pressure increases by 33.8% on average.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the University of Zanjan for providing the necessary resources and facilities for this research.

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  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Zanjan, Zanjan, Iran

    Mohammad Bahrehdar & Ali Lakirouhani

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  1. Mohammad Bahrehdar
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Bahrehdar, M., Lakirouhani, A. Assessment of Interplay of Mud Cake and Failure Criteria on the Lower Limit of Safe Borehole Pressure. Indian Geotech J (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40098-023-00856-8

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