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Main Authors: Kumar, Shubham, Sahoo, Anshuman
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.07564
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author Kumar, Shubham
Sahoo, Anshuman
author_facet Kumar, Shubham
Sahoo, Anshuman
contents Accurate wellbore trajectory prediction is a paramount challenge in subsurface engineering, governed by complex interactions between the drilling assembly and heterogeneous geological formations. This research establishes a comprehensive, mathematically rigorous framework for trajectory prediction that moves beyond empirical modeling to a geomechanically-informed, data-driven surrogate approach.The study leverages Log ASCII Standard (LAS) and wellbore deviation (DEV) data from 14 wells in the Gulfaks oil field, treating petrophysical logs not merely as input features, but as proxies for the mechanical properties of the rock that fundamentally govern drilling dynamics. A key contribution of this work is the formal derivation of wellbore kinematic models, including the Average Angle method and Dogleg Severity, from the first principles of vector calculus and differential geometry, contextualizing them as robust numerical integration schemes. The core of the predictive model is a Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) network, for which we provide a complete, step-by-step derivation of the forward propagation dynamics and the Backpropagation Through Time (BPTT) training algorithm. This detailed theoretical exposition, often omitted in applied studies, clarifies the mechanisms by which the network learns temporal dependencies. The methodology encompasses a theoretically justified data preprocessing pipeline, including feature normalization, uniform depth resampling, and sequence generation. Trajectory post-processing and error analysis are conducted using Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and the Coefficient of Determination (R2).
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_07564
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Geomechanically-Informed Framework for Wellbore Trajectory Prediction: Integrating First-Principles Kinematics with a Rigorous Derivation of Gated Recurrent Networks
Kumar, Shubham
Sahoo, Anshuman
Geophysics
Numerical Analysis
Accurate wellbore trajectory prediction is a paramount challenge in subsurface engineering, governed by complex interactions between the drilling assembly and heterogeneous geological formations. This research establishes a comprehensive, mathematically rigorous framework for trajectory prediction that moves beyond empirical modeling to a geomechanically-informed, data-driven surrogate approach.The study leverages Log ASCII Standard (LAS) and wellbore deviation (DEV) data from 14 wells in the Gulfaks oil field, treating petrophysical logs not merely as input features, but as proxies for the mechanical properties of the rock that fundamentally govern drilling dynamics. A key contribution of this work is the formal derivation of wellbore kinematic models, including the Average Angle method and Dogleg Severity, from the first principles of vector calculus and differential geometry, contextualizing them as robust numerical integration schemes. The core of the predictive model is a Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) network, for which we provide a complete, step-by-step derivation of the forward propagation dynamics and the Backpropagation Through Time (BPTT) training algorithm. This detailed theoretical exposition, often omitted in applied studies, clarifies the mechanisms by which the network learns temporal dependencies. The methodology encompasses a theoretically justified data preprocessing pipeline, including feature normalization, uniform depth resampling, and sequence generation. Trajectory post-processing and error analysis are conducted using Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and the Coefficient of Determination (R2).
title A Geomechanically-Informed Framework for Wellbore Trajectory Prediction: Integrating First-Principles Kinematics with a Rigorous Derivation of Gated Recurrent Networks
topic Geophysics
Numerical Analysis
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.07564