Development of Advanced Drilling Engineering

A special issue of Processes (ISSN 2227-9717). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 May 2026 | Viewed by 407

Special Issue Editor

School of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, China
Interests: drilling engineering design; drilling risk control; wellbore integrity evaluation and control; intelligent drilling and completion
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The energy industry is constantly evolving, with drilling engineering at the forefront of this transformation. This Special Issue focuses on the latest advances in advanced drilling engineering, particularly in deep-water, deep-earth, and unconventional oil and gas drilling, and intelligent drilling engineering.

Deep-water drilling has advanced significantly, enabling access to previously untapped resources in the ocean. The successful drilling of wells in ultra-deep waters, such as China’s attempt in the South China Sea, exemplifies the technological capabilities now available. Additionally, deep-earth drilling, as demonstrated by the completion of the 10910-meter-deep Well Shendi-Tak1 in China, has broken new ground in exploring the Earth's interior.

Additionally, more research efforts are being directed towards unconventional oil and gas drilling, crucial for energy diversification, and intelligent drilling engineering, which has the potential to enhance efficiency and safety. We welcome contributions that present novel concepts, research findings, and case studies in these areas.

This Special Issue, “Development of Advanced Drilling Engineering”, seeks high-quality papers on drilling engineering research. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Energy industry;
  • Drilling engineering;
  • Advanced drilling;
  • Deep-water drilling;
  • Deep-earth drilling;
  • Unconventional oil and gas drilling;
  • Intelligent drilling engineering;
  • Drill cuttings disposal;
  • Environmentally friendly drilling fluids.

Dr. Yuqiang Xu
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • advanced drilling engineering
  • deep-water/deep-earth drilling
  • unconventional oil and gas drilling
  • intelligent drilling technology

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

21 pages, 8836 KB  
Article
Strain-Softening-Based Elliptical Wellbore Model for Horizontal In-Situ Stress Prediction and Wellbore Stability Analysis in the Wujiaping Formation of Kaijiang-Liangping Block, Eastern Sichuan Basin, Sichuan Province
by Xinrui Yang, Qiang Wang, Ji Xu, Meng Li, Kanhua Su, Qian Li, Liangjun Xu, Qiang Pu, Guanghui Shi, Wen Tang, Chen Jing, Bo Xu and Qifeng Qin
Processes 2025, 13(10), 3326; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr13103326 - 17 Oct 2025
Viewed by 248
Abstract
Marine shale is highly prone to wellbore collapse due to its high pore pressure, propensity for hydration and swelling, distinct bedding planes, and low tensile strength. Horizontal in situ stress serves as a critical parameter for wellbore stability analysis; however, its accurate prediction [...] Read more.
Marine shale is highly prone to wellbore collapse due to its high pore pressure, propensity for hydration and swelling, distinct bedding planes, and low tensile strength. Horizontal in situ stress serves as a critical parameter for wellbore stability analysis; however, its accurate prediction is extremely challenging in complex geological environments. Conventional studies often simplify the wellbore as a circular shape, neglecting its natural elliptical deformation under non-uniform in situ stress, which leads to reduced predictive accuracy. To address this limitation, this study establishes an elliptical wellbore model that incorporates the strain-softening characteristics of shale. Theoretical models for stress distribution in both elastic and plastic zones were derived. The strain-softening behavior was validated through triaxial compression tests, providing a foundation for analytical solutions of stress distributions around circular and elliptical wellbores. Furthermore, an elliptical wellbore-based model was developed to derive a new prediction equation for horizontal in situ stress. Numerical programming was employed to compute stress distributions, and finite element simulations under various aspect ratios corroborated the theoretical results, showing excellent agreement. Results demonstrate that the elliptical wellbore model captures the near-wellbore stress state more accurately. As the aspect ratio increases, the extreme values of radial and tangential stresses increase significantly, with pronounced stress concentrations observed around the 180° and 360° positions. Predictions of horizontal in situ stress based on the proposed model achieved over 89% accuracy when verified against field data, confirming its reliability. This study overcomes the limitations inherent in the traditional circular wellbore assumption, providing a more precise analytical method for wellbore stability assessment in Marine shale under complex geological conditions. The findings offer a valuable theoretical basis for wellbore stability management and drilling engineering design. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Development of Advanced Drilling Engineering)
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