Sand Production in Isotropic and Anisotropic Stress Tests

Increasing the profitability of sand producing fields requires sand management and accurate predictions of sand onset and sand mass such that well completion geometry and method and drawdown and depletion during the life of the well is optimized. Sand production models have not been proven under fully anisotropic stress conditions (trae triaxial stress states) which are most commonly encountered in the field. Most of sand production models in the literature have been experimentally validated under isotropic stress conditions and subsequently applied to anisotropic states as well. However, this extrapolation may not be directly valid especially for sand rate predictions where stress anisotropy gives rise to non-uniform plasticized and erodible zones around the hole that may give substantially different sand production rates than those predicted by models calibrated on data from isotropic tests. The sand production under anisotropic stresses is analyzed numerically using an hydro mechanical erosion model and the results show the effect of stress anisotropy on sand mass and rate.