10.57647/j.ijes.2025.16974

Analytical Evaluating Induced Stresses in reservoir rock: Insights into the Role of Biot’s Coefficient and Flow Regime

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  • Amin Tohidi*1,
  1. Department of Mining Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

Received: 2024-08-29

Revised: 2024-10-19

Accepted: 2024-11-11

Published 2025-07-05

Copyright (c) -1 Amin Tohidi (Author)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Tohidi, A. (2025). Analytical Evaluating Induced Stresses in reservoir rock: Insights into the Role of Biot’s Coefficient and Flow Regime. Iranian Journal of Earth Sciences. https://doi.org/10.57647/j.ijes.2025.16974
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Abstract

Assessing the impacts of drilling and production activities on induced stresses in oil and gas wells is crucial for addressing various geomechanical challenges such as wellbore instability, sand production, and potential blowout incidents. Mechanical instability arises when induced stresses surpass the strength of the formation. Since reservoir rock behaves as a porous medium, accurately calculating effective stress around the wellbore, based on Biot’s theory, is essential for estimating induced stresses. Understanding Biot’s coefficient is pivotal, particularly in high-pressure and soft rock reservoirs, as it influences the effective stress derived from total stress and pore pressure. However, laboratory measurements for Biot’s coefficient are expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, this paper developed the analytical solution for induced stresses in the anisotropic stress field in both Darcy and non-Darcy flow regime and investigated the impact of variations in Biot’s coefficient on induced stresses around wellbores, focusing on radial, tangential, and vertical stresses. The study highlights the significance of Biot’s coefficient in modulating effective stresses in oil and gas wells. Additionally, it addresses the prevalence of non-Darcy flow alongside Darcy flow in scenarios involving gas reservoirs, HPHT wells, and hydraulic fractures. Thus, the effect of Biot’s coefficient on induced stresses is explored in both Darcy and non-Darcy flow regimes. Results indicate that increasing Biot's coefficient in the Darcy flow regime reduces radial, tangential, and vertical stresses around the wellbore, suggesting lower stress levels in the soft rock relative to hard rock. Conversely, in the non-Darcy flow regime, increasing Biot’s coefficient reduces radial stress while initially increasing tangential stress near the wellbore wall, followed by a decrease at farther distances. The opposite trend is observed for vertical stress, highlighting the dependence of stress patterns on the flow regime. Solving stress equations for a typical reservoir under both Darcy and non-Darcy flow regimes, it is concluded that the variation in Biot’s coefficient has a negligible effect on induced stresses under low drawdown pressure reservoirs. This research provides valuable insights into the complex interplay between Biot’s coefficient, flow regimes, and induced stresses in oil and gas wells, aiding in developing effective strategies for mitigating geomechanical risks.

Keywords

  • Biot’s coefficient,
  • Well-induced stresses,
  • Darcy flow,
  • non-Darcy flow,
  • Reservoir
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