Abstract
In the past decade, the applicability of the poromechanics theory in the oil and gas industry has taken big strides. Many of the mathematical complexities encountered with time-dependent coupled processes in rock/fluid interaction have been overcome. The coupled phenomena associated with the rock matrix deformation, fluid flow, temperature gradients, and chemical activity have been modeled in an analytical form. And the various analytical solutions related to rock testing and wellbore stability simulations have been implemented in two industry-supported software tools: PCORE-3D and PBORE-3D. On the one hand, PCORE-3D is intended for simulating and analyzing laboratory rock testing. On the other hand, PBORE-3D is targeted at predicting and designing wellbore stability during drilling.
Both packages are modeled within the frameworks of the time-dependent coupled theories of poromechanics as well as the classical theory of solid mechanics. The design engineer, thus, is capable of comparing solutions of the specific problems, within the realm of these theories. In this study, the solutions to the subject problems are explained with illustrative emphasis on laboratory and field cases; the mechanical interpretation of the output is cognitively elaborated; and both software tools are fundamentally described in details with their respective 3-D monitoring capabilities illustrated.
