Stress Analysis of an Inclined Borehole Subjected to Fluid Discharge in Saturated Transversely Isotropic Rocks

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-1-2019

Abstract

The hydraulic fracturing process in the oil and gas industry, which can be represented by a borehole subjected to three-dimensional in situ stresses and a fluid discharge over a finite length of its surface, is essentially a coupled boundary value problem. This paper innovatively reformulates the governing equations for this important three-dimensional problem in transversely isotropic rock formations based on Biot's poroelasticity theory and solves the governing equations with the aid of Fourier series and the standard Laplace and Fourier integral transforms. The problem is subsequently decomposed into five subproblems, each of which can be transformed into a set of dual integral equations and can be readily solved by standard procedure. The verification is followed by the study of the influences of material anisotropy on the stress responses of the porous medium around the borehole. It is found that neglecting the mechanical anisotropy of the rocks would result in substantial errors to the predicted stress distributions around the wellbore and thus considerable impacts on the design of hydraulic fracturing.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

International Journal of Geomechanics

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