Roman Shor

University of Calgary

Advancing solutions for geothermal systems

Drilling into hot, hard rock presents significant rock cutting and hole stability challenges.  Shock cooling of the rock, when reservoir rock at 200-300C is rapidly cooled to 150C by drilling fluids, may improve drilling performance due to changing of the stress state at the bit face, but also may destabilize wellbores due to changes in hoop stress.  Recent observations from drilling of hot dry rock will be discussed and initial ideas of a geomechanical formulation to incorporate cooling in rock cutting and hole stability will be proposed.