Radial profiling of the three formation shear moduli and its application to well completions

Near-wellbore alteration in shear stiffnesses in the three orthogonal planes can be described in terms of radial variations of the three shear moduli or slownesses. The three shear moduli are different in formations exhibiting orthorhombic or lower degree of symmetry, as is the case in deviated wellbores in triaxially stressed formations. These shear moduli are affected by factors such as overbalanced drilling, borehole stress concentrations, shale swelling, near-wellbore mechanical damage, and supercharging of permeable formations. The two vertical shear moduli C44 and C55 in an anisotropic formation with a vertical x3 -axis are obtained from crossed-dipole sonic data, whereas the horizontal shear modulus C66 is estimated from borehole Stoneley data. The effective shear modulus C66 is smaller than the vertical shear moduli C44 or C55 in a poroelastic formation exhibiting high horizontal fluid mobility. Consequently, analyses of radial profiling of the three shear moduli in a reasonably uniform lithology ...