Assessment of the Validity of MWD Survey Accuracy Following Multistation Analysis

Hanak, F. Chad; Wilson, Harry; Gjertsen, Morten

doi:10.2118/173098-ms

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 4 publications

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“…Seong-hoon [24] unintentionally took into account the shell or carrier of accelerometer during error estimation process by placing the sensor at six different tilt angles. Similarly, Zhang [25], Fang [26], and Hanak [27] drew on a combination of the ellipsoid fitting method and the multi-position method to solve the problem. However, all the multi-position methods require an extra device to provide a reference position and are unsuited to the MWD instrument.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Designed Calibration Approach for the Measurement-While-Drilling Instrument

et al. 2022

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The Measurement-While-Drilling (MWD) system, composed of a tri-axial magnetometer and a tri-axial accelerometer, is widely used in the Horizontal Directional Drilling machine in coal mines. This system can provide attitude information of each measuring point in the borehole, which will eventually allow the trajectory of the borehole to be drawn. The attitude information, however, showed a low-level accuracy, due to the sensor’s imperfection and mounting errors. The accuracy worsened when low-cost sensors were employed, as they had higher random noise. Therefore, an exploration of ways to eliminate the sensor imperfection and mounting tolerance as well as to suppress the noise is needed. In this paper, a feasible calibration approach was designed to address these issues. This new approach combined three foundational calibration algorithms, including the ellipsoidal fitting method, the planar fitting method, and the inner product invariance method. The traditional ellipsoidal fitting method and planar fitting method were optimized by using the recursive least square criterion and omitting the steps of sample data acquisition, respectively. In addition, the noise suppression method was involved in our approach to improve the calibration accuracy. The numerical simulation results showed that the number of sampling points decreased significantly, but the accuracy of the azimuthal angle and the pitch angle fully met the engineering requirements. The experimental results showed that the pitch angle error was reduced by less than 0.5°, and the azimuth error was also reduced by less than 2.5°. It should be noted that this new approach could be implemented without the help of other expensive auxiliary equipment.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Designed Calibration Approach for the Measurement-While-Drilling Instrument

et al. 2022

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Dynamic Error Analysis of Measurement While Drilling Using Variable Geomagnetic In-Field Referencing

et al. 2018

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Summary The safe and economical determination of a wellbore trajectory in directional drilling is traditionally achieved by measurement-while-drilling (MWD) methods, which implement magnetic north-seeking sensor packages. Inaccuracies in the determination of well path arise because of random and systematic errors in the measurements of the sensors. Multistation analysis (MSA) and magnetic in-field referencing (IFR) have already demonstrated the potential to decrease the effects of errors because of magnetization of drillstring components along with variable errors caused by irregularities in the magnetization of crustal rocks in the vicinity of wells. Advanced MSA methodologies divide a borehole into several sections and use the average reference values of the total magnetic field, declination, and dip angle for analysis of errors in each section. Our investigations indicate that the variable-reference MSA (VR-MSA) can lead to a better determination of errors, specifically in areas of high magnetization. In this methodology, magnetic reference values are estimated at each station using forward and inverse modeling of surface-magnetic observations from IFR surveys. The fixed errors in magnetometer components are then calculated by minimizing the variance of the difference between the measured and unique estimated reference values at each station. A Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm (LMA) is adopted to solve the nonlinear optimization problem. Examination of this methodology using MWD data confirms more than 20% improvement in well-path-determination accuracy by comparing the results with the corrected path from the conventional MSA method and gyro surveys.

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Measurement-While-Drilling MWD Error Model Validation – Does the Model Reflect Reality?

Gutiérrez¹,

Hanak²

2021

SPE/IADC International Drilling Conference and Exhibition

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It has been well documented that magnetic models and Measurement-while-Drilling (MWD) directional sensors are not free from error. It is for this reason that directional surveys are accompanied by an error model that is used to generate an ellipse of uncertainty (EOU). The directional surveys represent the highest probable position of the wellbore and the EOU is meant to encompass all of the possible wellbore positions to a defined uncertainty level. The wellbore position along with the individual errors are typically presumed to follow a Normal (Gaussian) Distribution. In order for this assumption to be accurate, 68.3% of magnetic model and directional sensor error should fall within plus or minus one standard deviation (1σ), 95.5% within two standard deviations (2σ), and 99.7% within three standard deviations (3σ) of the limits defined in the error model. It is the purpose of this study to evaluate the validity of these assumptions. The Industry Steering Committee on Wellbore Survey Accuracy (ISCWSA) provides a set of MWD error models that are widely accepted as the industry standard for use in wellbore surveying. The error models are comprised of the known magnetic model and MWD directional sensor error sources and associated limits. It is the purpose of this paper to determine whether the limits defined in the ISCWSA MWD error models are representative of the magnitude of errors observed in practice. In addition to the ISCWSA defined error model terms, this research also includes an analysis of the sensor twist error term and the associated limits defined in the Fault Detection, Isolation, and Recovery (FDIR) error model. This study is comprised of 138 MWD runs that were selected based on the criteria that they were processed using FDIR with overlapping gyro surveying to ensure highly accurate and consistent estimated values. The error magnitudes and uncertainties estimated by FDIR were compiled and analyzed in comparison to the expected limits outlined in the error models. The results conclude that the limits defined in the ISCWSA error models are not always representative of what is observed in practice. For instance, in U.S. land the assumed magnitudes of several of the error sources are overly optimistic compared to the values observed in this study. This means that EOUs with which wells are planned may not be large enough in some scenarios which could cause the operator to assume unanticipated additional risk. The final portion of this analysis was undertaken to test the hypothesis that preventative measures such as additional non-magnetic spacing are generally being taken by operators and directional service providers to minimize additional injected error when survey corrections are not being implemented while drilling the well. This hypothesis was tested by dividing the 138 MWD runs into Historical (survey corrections were not utilized in real-time) and Real-Time (survey corrections were utilized in real-time) categories. The results indicate that there are no significant differences in the error estimates between the Historical and Real-Time categories. This result in combination with the determination that the majority of the error model error terms should be categorized as fat-tail distributed indicate that proper well spacing and economics calculated using separation factor alone are insufficient without the use of survey corrections in Real-Time.

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Assessment of the Validity of MWD Survey Accuracy Following Multistation Analysis

Cited by 5 publications

References 4 publications

A Designed Calibration Approach for the Measurement-While-Drilling Instrument

A Designed Calibration Approach for the Measurement-While-Drilling Instrument

Dynamic Error Analysis of Measurement While Drilling Using Variable Geomagnetic In-Field Referencing

Measurement-While-Drilling MWD Error Model Validation – Does the Model Reflect Reality?

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