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US 9,664,039 B2Granted
Apparatus and method using measurements taken while drilling to map mechanical boundaries and mechanical rock properties along a borehole
AssigneeFracture ID, Inc.
InventorsR. Christopher Neale, James D. Lakings
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present disclosure involves a novel way of using drilling vibrations generated by the deformation of a rock formation in response to forces acting on the rock formation, where the forces are related to a drill bit and/or drilling fluid system, to identify the nature and occurrence of fractures, fracture swarms and other mechanical discontinuities (boundaries) such as bedding planes and/or faults that offset or otherwise separate rock formations with different mechanical rock properties.
Claims27
A method of characterizing rock properties while drilling comprising:
- receiving acoustical signals obtained from one or more sensors positioned on a component of a bottom hole assembly, the acoustical signals generated from a drill bit interacting with a rock formation while drilling a wellbore;
- processing the acoustical signals to obtain forces acting on the drill bit interacting with the rock formation while drilling the wellbore and to obtain displacements of the drill bit interacting with the rock formation while drilling the wellbore;
- and
- processing the forces and the displacements to obtain at least one set of data values representative of a mechanical rock property of the rock formation along the wellbore created by the drill bit interacting with the rock formation for a period of time,
- wherein the acoustical signals include an axial acceleration of the drill bit and a lateral or rotary acceleration of the drill bit.
2 more elements
A method of characterizing rock properties while drilling comprising:
- receiving acoustical signals obtained from one or more sensors positioned on a component of a bottom hole assembly, the acoustical signals generated from a drill bit interacting with a rock formation while drilling a wellbore;
- processing the acoustical signals to obtain forces acting on the drill bit interacting with the rock formation while drilling the wellbore and to obtain displacements of the drill bit interacting with the rock formation while drilling the wellbore;
- processing the forces and the displacements to obtain at least one set of data values representative of a mechanical rock property of the rock formation along the wellbore created by the drill bit interacting with the rock formation for a period of time;
- and
- using a stress strain relationship for processing the forces and displacements to obtain the at least one set of data values representative of a mechanical rock property of the rock formation along the wellbore created by the drill bit interacting with the rock formation for a period of time.
2 more elements
A method of characterizing rock properties while drilling comprising:
- receiving acoustical signals obtained from one or more sensors positioned on a component of a bottom hole assembly, the acoustical signals generated from a drill bit interacting with a rock formation while drilling a wellbore;
- processing the acoustical signals to obtain forces acting on the drill bit interacting with the rock formation while drilling the wellbore and to obtain displacements of the drill bit interacting with the rock formation while drilling the wellbore;
- and
- processing the forces and the displacements to obtain at least one set of data values representative of a mechanical rock property of the rock formation along the wellbore created by the drill bit interacting with the rock formation for a period of time,
- wherein the at least one set of data values includes stiffness coefficients (Cijs).
2 more elements
A method of hydraulic fracturing comprising:
- receiving a well log spatially identifying a plurality of mechanical discontinuities in a wellbore, the plurality of mechanical discontinuities indicative of a respective plurality of preexisting fractures along the wellbore, the well log generated from a data set representative of a mechanical rock property of a formation along the wellbore and from a bottom hole assembly, the data set generated by:
- obtaining acoustical signals obtained from one or more sensors positioned on a component of the bottom hole assembly, the acoustical signals generated from a drill bit interacting with a rock formation while drilling the wellbore;
- processing the acoustical signals to obtain forces acting on the drill bit interacting with the rock formation while drilling the wellbore and to obtain displacements of the drill bit interacting with the rock formation while drilling the wellbore;
- and
- processing the forces and the displacements to obtain data set representative of a mechanical rock property of the rock formation along the wellbore created by the drill bit interacting with the rock formation;
- and
- completing the wellbore based on the plurality of mechanical discontinuities indicative of the respective plurality of preexisting fractures,
- wherein the data set includes stiffness coefficients (Cijs).
5 more elements
An apparatus comprising:
- a processing unit in communication with at least one tangible machine readable media including computer executable instructions to perform the operations of:
- obtaining acoustical signals obtained from one or more sensors positioned on a component of a bottom hole assembly, the acoustical signals generated from a drill bit interacting with a rock formation while drilling a wellbore;
- processing the acoustical signals to obtain forces acting on the drill bit interacting with the rock formation while drilling the wellbore and to obtain displacements of the drill bit interacting with the rock formation while drilling the wellbore;
- and
- processing the forces and the displacements to obtain at least one set of data values representative of a mechanical rock property of the rock formation along the wellbore created by the drill bit interacting with the rock formation for a period of time,
- wherein the at least one set of data values includes stiffness coefficients (Cijs).
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.