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For full details about the Simulation and Modelling 2022 conference, please visit the event website.
Please briefly explain your current role and involvement in simulation and modelling technologies.
Murat Panayirci (MP): am a principal research scientist working for Schlumberger since 2011. We are a technology company serving the oilfield sector and recently expanding to new energy as well. Schlumberger has many research and engineering centers around the world and I work in the research center based in Cambridge, UK. Since my start in the company, I have been involved with modeling the drillstring and bit-rock interaction to simulate the drilling process. We have developed models with varying fidelity and complexity, starting from simple lumped-parameter ones all the way to 3D dynamic FEA.
What is the number one challenge holding back the integration of simulation and modelling?
MP: For our applications, there are two main hurdles in terms of modeling. The first one is the uncertainties in the input parameters. Rocks exhibit a large variety in terms of their mechanical properties. It is also quite challenging to find adequate material models capturing their failure, since there are many different types of rocks. The second hurdle is the spectrum of length scales one needs to consider. You need to capture the interaction between cutters and the rock at sub-mm scale to accurately predict the forces and other quantities of interest. However, the entire drillstring is thousands of feet long. This makes running advanced simulations computationally very costly.
What key topics are you excited to discuss at this year's conference?
MP: It will be exciting to se how other industries make use of digital twins and what type of challenges they face.
What can engineers expect from your presentation at the event?
MP: I will show how we used a hardware-in-the-loop system to create a torsional vibration mode observed in drillstrings. This is a damaging phenomenon for the drilling tools and we encounter it frequently in field operations. The challenge until recently was that we could not study it in the lab since the phenomenon occurs only in the presence of thousand’s feet of drillstring. However, thanks to the HIL framework we developed, we can create this phenomenon now in the lab in a controlled, measurable, and repeatable manner. This was an important enabler for us to study the response of the drillstring and develop mitigation techniques. I will cover how we achieved these in detail during my talk.
What key development/s in simulation and modelling are you most interested in for the future and why?
MP: I believe the next big step for simulation world is the incorporation of uncertainties. The world around us is never as idealized as we imagine in our numerical models. We need to capture these uncertainties to accurately predict their implications. Then we can make progress and move away from overly conservative safety factors which we derive from today’s deterministic models.
Why is it important for engineers to join this event?
MP: I think it is a good opportunity for networking and catching up with the recent advancements in the modeling world, as well as the applications existing in other industries.
The Simulation and Modelling 2022 conference will take place on 20-21 September 2022 at the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry
Join us in 2022 to hear how thought-leaders and senior engineers are using new technologies and techniques for digital twinning, design, validation, fault detection and process optimisation. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage with colleagues and peers across multiple industries and take back fresh perspectives of how these technologies are being used to optimise design, development, testing, manufacturing and operational engineering: for full details about the Simulation and Modelling 2022 conference, please visit the event website.