ARMA 12-559

Analysis of Horizontal Wellbore Stability in Clay Shale

Akl, S. A.1
Shell Exploration & Production Company Projects and Technologies, Houston, Texas, USA

Whittle, A. J.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
USA
Copyright 2012 ARMA, American Rock Mechanics Association
This paper was prepared for presentation at the 46th US Rock Mechanics / Geomechanics Symposium held in Chicago, IL, USA, 24-27 June
2012.
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ABSTRACT: This paper examines how the predicted mechanisms of horizontal wellbore stability are related to the constitutive
model describing the mechanical behavior of the geologic formation around the wellbores. Two critical state soil models are used:
Modified Cam Clay [1] and MIT-E3 [2]. The horizontal wellbores are modeled by a 2D plane strain model with horizontal and
vertical axes of symmetry using non-linear finite elements. The paper considers wellbores drilled in cross-anisotropic saturated
porous formation of unlithified hard clay/soft shale. Short-term wellbore instability during drilling in low permeability formations
is analyzed assuming undrained conditions. The paper compares the MCC and MIT-E3 predictions of critical mud pressures at
which failure occurs; and deformations and shear strains around the wellbore at a reference mud pressure. For the horizontal
wellbore, the MIT-E3 model predicts failure due to a local increase in inward deformations at the cavity wall and higher critical
mud pressure than the underbalanced drilling limit. The MIT-E3 model predicts lower magnitudes of shear strains around the
wellbore but higher critical mud pressure at failure than that predicted by the MCC model. The more sophisticated MIT-E3 with an
asymmetric yield surface gives a more accurate prediction of failure in horizontal wellbores.

1. INTRODUCTION
Efforts to expand oil resources and explore new
territories are vital to sustain hydrocarbon production in
the next few decades. Part of these efforts includes oil
production from very shallow oil reservoirs, located at
depths less than 1,000m in both deepwater environments
and onshore prospects. Effective exploitation of such
reservoirs relies on a small number of surface drilling
locations, with highly deviated wells drilled with
complex directional trajectories. The formations
encountered at such shallow depths are often poorlylithified and are more properly classed as unconsolidated
rocks or stiff clays. The shear strengths of these
formations are expected to be an order of magnitude
weaker than those found at typical reservoir depths.
Such unconsolidated shale formations exhibit highly
non-linear deformation properties, are strongly
anisotropic and exhibit strain-softening in some states
and modes of shearing. Given the complex material
behavior, reliable predictions of borehole deformations
1

Formerly a Research Assistant in the department of Civil

and Environmental Engineering at MIT, during the time this
research was conducted.

and stability can only be achieved with relatively

sophisticated constitutive models that are able to
represent realistically the anisotropic stress-strainstrength properties of the soft shale formations.
These conditions present a unique situation where
material models from critical state soil mechanics
provide insight to the behavior around wellbores in soft
shales, if properly calibrated. The objective of this paper
is to show the advantages of using sophisticated soil
models in analyzing the stability of horizontal wellbores.
This paper uses the terminology of wellbore unloading
problem to describe wellbore stability and deformations
while drilling. Wellbore drilling causes release of radial
stresses and increase in hoop stresses within the
formation. For wellbores in low permeability clays, the
process is sufficiently rapid such that there is minimal
migration of pore fluid within the formation. Hence, the
wellbore stability analyses consider stability due to
undrained shearing within the formation. Two critical
state soil models are used: Modified Cam Clay (MCC;
[1]), and MIT-E3 [2]. The MCC results are considered a
reference case, and are amenable to simplified
interpretation due to the assumption of isotropy. MIT-E3
provides more accurate representation of the anisotropic

stress-strain properties observed in the laboratory

element tests.

2. HORIZONTAL WELLBORE UNLOADING

PROBLEM
The current analyses make the key assumption that the
formation is comprised 1-D consolidated sediments,
such that far field stresses, in the global frame of
reference, are fully defined by the effective vertical
overburden stress, v0, and the lateral earth pressure
ratio, K0, associated with the consolidation stress history.
Stress conditions in the horizontal plane are isotropic,
xx = yy = K0v0. Mechanical (deformation and
strength) properties of the formation are also expected to
be isotropic in the horizontal plane (i.e. material will be
cross-anisotropic) under these formation conditions. In
practice, K0-formation conditions are typically
associated with horizontal stratification (horizontal
layering of sediments) and level ground surface.
The wellbore inclination is defined by the deviation
angle from the vertical, . The local axes of horizontal
wellbores are aligned with global frame of reference as
shown in Figure 1. The geostatic stresses are not
transformed to local axes of horizontal wellbores, and
the deviatoric stresses resulting from K0-consolidation of
the shale are fully acting on the horizontal wellbore.
Initially, the state of stresses are uniform everywhere in
the model; but with decreasing mud pressure, state of
stresses at each point on the cavity wall changes
differently depending on it position (defined by angular
coordinate, ).

The initial conditions are defined in the plane strain

model by preventing deformations at the cavity wall
(i.e., prior to drilling) and applying the far field stresses
at the boundaries. In Stage II, the deviatoric component
of stresses at the cavity wall is relieved. This is
established when uniform radial pressure acts at all
points around the cavity wall. The radial pressures are
then reduced incrementally to establish the relationship
between wellbore deformations and mud pressure (Stage
III). Critical mud pressures (radial pressures) are reached
when severe element distortions are encountered in the
analysis and failure is initiated.

(a)

(b)
Fig. 2. Schematic diagrams showing the: (a) the quarter
model, (b) the finite element mesh used to represent the
porous medium around a horizontal wellbore.
Fig. 1. A schematic diagram showing a horizontal wellbore
drilled in K0-consolidation conditions.

For these 2D situations the wellbore stability can be

analyzed using a plane strain analysis of the quarter
plane model as shown in Figure 2a. In a horizontal
wellbore, there are far field deviatoric stress conditions
such that yy = v0 and xx = K0v0 = h0.

The porous medium is modeled in ABAQUS by the

conventional approach that considers the medium as a
multiphase material and adopts an effective stress
principle to describe its behavior. Finite element
analyses were performed using mixed elements
(displacement and pore pressure degrees of freedom) as
shown in Figure 2b. The quadrilateral elements (8
displacement and 4 pore pressure degrees of freedom)

use isoparametric quadratic expansions of the

displacement field and bi-linear expansion of the pore
pressure field. The reader is referred to Akl [3] for more
information on the followed numerical simulations of
horizontal wellbores.

The plastic strains follow an associated flow rule where

the plastic flow direction (potential function) is taken as
the gradient of the yield surface. This is a simplification
that proved inadequate for the behavior of K 0consolidated material. The yield surface exhibits density
hardening which is proportional to the rate of plastic

3. CONSTITUTIVE MODELS

volumetric strain, .

.p

Prior research on related analyses of cavity contraction

problems in elasto-plastic soils shows that the
predictions are strongly related to the constitutive
behavior and stress-strain properties of the soils. The
mechanical response of low permeability clays is highly
complex and involves non-linear and inelastic behavior
even at small levels of shear strain (as small as 10-3%),
while anisotropic stress-strain-strength properties are
acquired due to 1-D consolidation stress history.

Table 1. Transformed variables of the stress and strain tensor

[2].

There are a wide range of generalized effective stress

models that have been proposed to describe these
material properties. Most are based on the theoretical
framework of elasto-plasticity and have evolved from
the original formulations of critical state soil models
such as Modified Cam Clay [1]. Prior research at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has led to
more sophisticated formulations that deal with the
anisotropic behavior of clays such as MIT-E3 [2].
The description of the MCC and MIT-E3 model
formulations uses general tensorial spaces: the effective
stress space (, S) and the strain space (, E). Whittle
and Kavvadas [2] introduced a set of transformed
variables for these tensorial quantities. Each transformed
variable involves six components: one isotropic
component (namely , , respectively) and five
deviatoric components (e.g. S1, S2, S3, S4, and S5 are the
transformed deviatoric components of stress). Table 1
shows the transformed variables for the stress and strain
tensors.
The yield function of the MCC model has the form of an
ellipsoid oriented along the isotropic consolidation axis
and described by Eq. (1). Figure 3 shows the MCC yield
surface in the transformed space described above.

f SiSi c2' (2' ' ) 0

(1)

where is a hardening parameter describing the

maximum hydrostatic pressure, and c is the slope of the
critical state line. The version of MCC in this paper
assumes extended Von Mises generalization of the yield
surface and critical state failure criterion [4]. The
constant c is calculated from large strain frictional angle
in triaxial compression shear tests, 'TC:

2
(6sin'TC )
2
c
M 3
3
3 sin 'TC

(2)

Fig. 3. Yield surface of MCC model in triaxial stress space. S1

is the deviatoric stress component (see Table 1).

The MIT-E3 formulation is based on the theory of

incrementally linearized elasto-plasticity and consists of
three distinct components: a) an elasto-plastic model for
normally consolidated clays; b) a perfectly hysteretic
formulation and c) bounding surface plasticity. The
model describes a number of important aspects of soil
behavior which have been observed in laboratory tests
on K0-normally consolidated clays including: 1)
anisotropic stress-strain-strength properties associated
with 1-D consolidation history and subsequent straining;

2) post-peak, strain softening in undrained shear tests in

certain modes of shearing on normally and lightly
overconsolidated clays; 3) small strain non-linearity
following a reversal of load direction; 4) hysteretic
behavior during unload-reload cycles of loading; 5)
occurrence of irrecoverable plastic strains during cyclic
loading and shearing of overconsolidated clays.

models are shown in Tables 2 and 3 respectively, and

briefly described.
Table 2. Input parameters for the MCC model.
Laboratory
Test

The mechanical behavior of soil elements normally

consolidated along radial effective stress paths (S/ =
constant) is described by a yield surface which is
initially oriented along the direction of consolidation.
The yield function is written by Kavvadas [5]:

f (S - ' b) : (S - ' b) c2' (2' ' ) 0

(3)

where, controls the size of the yield surface, b is a

second order tensor describing the orientation of the
yield surface in effective stress space (, S) and c is the
ratio of the semi-axes of the ellipsoid (Figure 4). For the
case when bi=0 (i=15), the yield surface reduces to the
same form as that used in the MCC.
Failure conditions are represented by an anisotropic
failure criterion. It is assumed that the orientation of the
failure criterion is fully defined by the friction angles
measured in triaxial compression and extension tests
('TC and 'TE, respectively) at large strain conditions
(typically a = 10% in undrained shear tests).

Fig. 4. Yield surface of the MIT-E3 model.

The constitutive models are calibrated to results of

standardized suite of laboratory experiments on the
analog shale, Resedimented Boston Blue Clay (RBBC)
[6]. The analog shale is a soil resedimented in the
laboratory from the natural Boston Blue Clay and
consolidated up to high pressures (10 MPa) comparable
to in-situ stresses of shallow reservoirs. The reader is
referred to Germaine [7] and Abdulhadi [8] for more
information on resedimentation process and laboratory
results. The input parameters for the MCC and MIT-E3

Onedimensional
Compression

Undrained
Triaxial

Value

Description

Parameter

Reference
Void Ratio on
VCL

e0

0.65

Normally
Consolidated
Compression

0.1302

Swelling
Behavior

0.01

Poissons
Ratio

2G/K

1.05

Critical State
Friction Angle

TC

31.50

4. HORIZONTAL WELLBORE
DEFORMATIONS AND FAILURE
Two different criteria are chosen to define failure in a
wellbore and the corresponding critical mud pressure at
which failure occurs. The first criterion defines failure as
an increase in inward deformations and shear strains
locally at the cavity wall. The second criterion is a limit
on large uniform cavity deformations up to 0.1R0 (R0 is
the initial wellbore cavity radius) at a reference point.
Figure 5 shows the computed inward deformations of the
wellbore as a function of the net total radial stress ratio,
(rr-u0)/v0, where u0 and v0 are the initial hydrostatic
pore pressure within the formation and the initial vertical
effective stress and rr is the total radial stress acting on
the cavity wall. The presented results are computed at
the reference point on the cavity where the angular
coordinate, = 900, corresponding to the crown point (x
= 0, y = R) in the FE model. The reference point is
chosen at the crown because this is initially where the
maximum inward deformations occur (at the end of
Stage II); i.e. when there is no remaining deviator stress
at the wellbore.
Figure 5 marks the occurrence of failure as predicted by
the MCC and MIT-E3 soil models based on reference
properties of K0-normally consolidated RBBC as
discussed in Section 3. The MIT-E3 model predicts
failure in horizontal wells according to the first criterion.
The crown point deforms inwardly by 0.07R0 at uniform
radial stresses acting on the cavity wall (mud pressure).

When cr/R0 = 2.8%, failure occurs when excessive

shear strains develop locally in the wellbore at (rru0)/v0 = 0.18. This is considered as the onset of
localized wellbore collapse. The reference mud pressure
is chosen as 0.2v0 to be slightly higher than the critical
mud pressure predicted by the MIT-E3 model for the
horizontal wellbore (i.e. most unstable case). MCC
predictions for the horizontal wellbore show no
comparable behavior, and pressures can be reduced far
below the underbalanced drilling limit (rr-u0/v0 = -0.7)
with large plastic deformations in the formation. In these
cases, failure is defined according to the second criterion
when inward deformations at the crown reach maximum
limit at cr/R0 = 10%.
For a vertical wellbore the far field stress conditions are
isotropic, and hence the wellbores deform uniformly
inwards during unloading. Non-uniformity of inward
deformations and cavity distortions increase with the
deviatoric component of far field stresses. Initially, the
circular cavity takes a regular oval shape, elongated
along the local x-axis. Cavity distortion or ovalization
can be defined by the ratio of the radial deformations at
the springline (y=0, x=R, =00) to that at the crown
(y=R, x=0, =900), sp/cr. As failure progresses, the
cavity distorts irregularly and the direction of cavity
elongation changes.

Table 3. Input parameters for the MIT-E3 model.

Laboratory
Test

Description

Parameter

Value

Reference
Void
Ratio on VCL

e0

0.65

Normally
Consolidated
Compression

0.1302

1.0

1.05

Irrecoverable
Plastic Strain

0.5

K0
for
virgin
normally
consolidated clay

K0NC

0.55

Poissons Ratio

2G/K

1.05

Critical
State
Friction Angles in
Triaxial
Compression and
Extension

TC

31.50

TE

34.50

Undrained
Shear
Strength (geometry
of
bounding
surface)

0.7

Amount of Postpeak
Strain
Softening
in
Undrained Triaxial
Compression

st

3.4

Non-linearity
at
Small Strains in
Undrained Shear

0.7

Shear Induced Pore

Pressures for OC
Clay

0.5

Shear Wave
Velocity

Small
strain
compressibility at
load Reversal

0.006

Drained
Triaxial

Rate of Evolution
of
Anisotropy
(rotation
of
bounding surface)

100.0

Onedimensional
Compression

K0

oedometer

Non-linear
Volumetric
Swelling Behavior

or
K0 -Triaxial

1.0
Undrained FE Simulation: Wellbore Unloading Problem
RBBC, OCR=1.0, K0 = 0.55, 'v0 =10 MPa

Radial Pressure Ratio = Mud Pressure Ratio

0.5
MIT-E3 Prediction

Undrained
Triaxial
Shear Tests

Reference Mud Pressure Ratio

Failure

0.0
Underbalanced Drilling Limit

MCC Prediction

-0.5

cr

= 90

-1.0
0.0

2.0

4.0

6.0

8.0

10.0

Normalized Cavity Deformation at Crown, /R (%)

cr

Fig. 5. Relationship between total radial stresses and cavity

deformations at crown point (=900) for the horizontal
wellbore in K0-normally consolidated RBBC using the MCC
and MIT-E3 soil models (cr is positive for inward
deformations).

Figure 6a describes the shapes of wellbore cavities at

failure using the undeformed shape of the cavity as a
datum. The inward deformations are scaled to the plotted
size of undeformed cavity by 5:1. In the MIT-E3 model
the inward deformation for the horizontal wellbore at the
crown point reaches 2.8% but the maximum
deformations occurs locally at =150, where r =3.1%.

strains at cavity wall increase, and high shear strains (E

> 30%) extend further in the formation with higher
deviation angles. The high octahedral shear strains lobes
of are oriented along a radial line at =450 at the critical
mud pressure.

The MCC model predicts regular oval-shaped cavity

deformations for inclined wellbores elongated along the
local y-axis. The inward deformation at the crown point
is 10% according to the second failure criterion. The
inward deformation at springline surpasses that at the
crown point so that sp/cr = 1.3.
Figure 6b compares MIT-E3 and MCC predictions of
deformations around wellbores at reference mud
pressure. For the MIT-E3 model the reference mud
pressure ratio is relatively close to the critical mud
pressure ratio. The deformed shape of the cavity is
irregular and shows local increase in inward
deformations at =150. The MCC predictions show less
deformation than that of MIT-E3. The deformed shape
of the cavity is practically circular with negligible
ovalization.
The radial deformations at the cavity wall are consistent
with shear strains around the cavity. Contours of
octahedral shear strains (the second invariant of the
deviatoric strain tensor2, E) describe the state of shear
strains around the cavity of a wellbore and provide a
clearer indication of the failure mechanism. Figures 7a
and 7b show the distribution of the octahedral shear
strains around the horizontal wellbore predicted by the
MIT-E3 while Figures 7c and 7d show those predicted
by the MCC model. The figures contrast the state of
strains at reference mud pressures and critical mud
pressures to show the progress of failure with decreasing
mud pressure (unloading wellbore) inside the cavity.

(a)

The presence of small and isolated zones of high shear

strains lead to local increases in deformation at the
cavity wall and collapse. High shear strains up to 27%
develop at =150 where local increases in inward
deformation occurs as shown in Figure 6.
The shear strain distribution predicted by the MCC
shows no localized zones of high shear strains at failure.
Magnitudes of octahedral shear strains are generally
higher than that predicted by the MIT-E3 model, hence
significant shear strains are chosen to be E > 1%. The
horizontal wellbore exhibits small zones of significant
shear strains within the range of =00 to 450 at the
reference mud pressure as shown in Figure 7c. With
further decrease of mud pressure, magnitudes of shear

E = E12 + E22 + E32 + E24 + E52 , the second invariant of the

deviatoric strain tensor in the transformed space [2].

(b)
Fig. 6. Radial Deformation of a horizontal wellbore as
predicted by the MIT-E3 and the MCC models at (a) critical
mud pressure, and (b) reference mud pressure.

Fig. 8. Initial Stress States near: (a) crown ( >450) and (b)
springline ( <450) of a horizontal wellbore before drilling and
unloading.

REFERENCES

Fig. 7. Octahedral shear strain contours computed by the MITE3 model (a and b) and the MCC model (c and d) at reference
mud pressures (a and c) and critical mud pressures (b and d).

1.

Roscoe, K.H., J.B. Burland. 1968. On the generalized

stress-strain behavior of Wet clay. In Engineering
Plasticity, ed. J. Heyman and F.A. Leckie, 2367.

2.

Whittle, A.J., M. Kavvadas. 1994. Formulation of the

MIT-E3 Constitutive Model for Overconsolidated
Clays. ASCE J. Geotechnical Engineering. Res. 120
(1): 173198.

3.

Akl, S.A. 2010. Wellbore Instability Mechanisms in

Clays. PhD Thesis. Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering at MIT, Cambridge, MA.

4.

Whittle, A.J. 1987. A Constitutive Model for over

consolidated clays with application to the cyclic
loading of friction piles. ScD Thesis. Department of
Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT,
Cambridge, MA.

5.

Kavvadas, M. 1982. Non-linear consolidation around

driven piles in clays. ScD Thesis. Department of Civil
and Environmental Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, MA.

6.

Abdulhadi, N.O., S.A. Akl, J.T. Germaine, and A.J.

Whittle. 2009. Wellbore Instability Mechanisms in
Very Hard Clay. 17th International Conference on Soil
Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Egypt.

7.

Germaine, J. T. 1982. Development of the directional

shear cell for measuring cross anisotropic clay
properties. ScD Thesis. Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, MA.

8.

Abdulhadi, N. O. 2009. An experimental investigation

into the stress-dependent mechanical behavior of
cohesive soil with application to wellbore instability.
PhD Thesis. Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, MA.

5. CONCLUSIONS
Decreasing mud pressure in a wellbore leads to a
decrease in the near wellbore radial stresses (extension),
and an increase in the near wellbore hoop or tangential
stresses (compression). In a horizontal wellbore, the
direction of unloading is aligned with the minor
principal stress near springline, and with the major
principal stress near crown as shown in Figures 8a and
8b. The two cases are separated at angular coordinate
=450. The intermediate principal stress acts
perpendicular to the plane of the wellbore in both cases.
The effect of this variation in shear modes cannot be
captured in a constitutive model with a symmetric yield
surface.
The MCC model describes a unique undrained shear
strength which is mobilized at critical state conditions
(i.e., unique effective stress state at failure) and is
independent of the direction of the applied principal
stresses. The predicted wellbore behavior is controlled
by the isotropic yield surface (symmetric with respect to
isotropic consolidation). As a result, the model grossly
overestimates the undrained shear strength in extension.
The anisotropic yield surface and hardening laws of the
MIT-E3 model allow a non-unique effective stress state
failure that depends on consolidation history (K0). The
MIT-E3 model predicts a more realistic behavior around
wellbores in soft rock/hard clay formations, and gives
more accurate estimates of wellbore stability. Hence, this
analysis shows the value in using sophisticated models
with asymmetric yield surfaces. Further work is needed
to strike a balance between the sophistication of the
model and reliable quantification of material parameters.