SPE/IADC-178197-MS

Torque and Drag Modeling; Soft-string versus Stiff-string Models

S. A. Mirhaj, University of Stavanger; E. Kaarstad, Baker Hughes; B. S. Aadnoy, University of Stavanger

Copyright 2016, SPE/IADC Middle East Drilling Technology Conference and Exhibition
This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE/IADC Middle East Drilling Technology Conference and Exhibition held in Abu Dhabi, UAE, 26 28 January 2016.
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Abstract
The wellbore friction, torque and drag, between drill string and the wellbore wall is one of the most
critical issues which limits the drilling industry to go beyond a certain measured depth. For this
reason many studies on torque & drag modeling have been performed. In this regard different
approaches have been used; the difference in these approaches is often on how to include bending
stiffness and shearing forces in the T&D calculations. These approaches are (1) the effect of shear
forces calculations with the assumption of continuous contact of the wellbore wall and the drillstring
as well as constant curvature trajectory, (2) the effect of bending stiffness and shearing forces
calculations with assuming of clearance between drillstring and wellbore-wall and (3) the effect of
bending moment and shearing forces, assuming continuous contact of the pipe and wellbore-wall and
using a non-constant curvature trajectory in which the first and second derivatives of the curve exist
(i.e. spline type trajectories).
This paper consists of two main parts: first a review on literatures on the subject of stiff-string T&D
will be considered. Secondly, an approach will be discussed in which despite of the assumption of constant
curvature trajectory and full-contact of pipe and wellbore wall, the effect of bending stiffness on torque
and drag calculations are considered. The simple and robust stiff-string model is implemented in two
example wells in order to find out the importance of the stiff-string calculations.

Introduction
Excessive torque and drag is a major challenge in drilling and completion of extended-reach and
horizontal wells with 3D geometry. Torque and drag modeling is regarded as an invaluable process to
assist in well planning and to predict and prevent drilling problems. Some wells can be drilled, but may
not be completed due to high friction.
Most of todays torque/drag models are based on the work of Johancsik et. al. (1984) and Sheppard et.
al. (1987), while a more comprehensive model is derived by H-S Ho (1986) and then put in more
understandable form by Mitchell and Samuel (2007). The basic fundamental equations to write the
equilibrium equations for elastic pipe in reciprocal and rotational motions of drillstring were introduced
by R.P. Nordgren (1974).

SPE/IADC-178197-MS

To satisfy equilibrium equation of the drillsring, the bending moment and shear forces have to be taken
into account. In 3-D space, the force balance in three dimensions; axial (tangential), radial (normal) and
mutually perpendicular (binormal) coordinates will be considered. The coordinate system is not fixed and
is moving along the drillstring in the wellbore. This will ease the resolving forces in direction of
coordinats. Some researchers (H.S. Ho (1986), Mitchell (2007), McSpadden) proposed the curvilinear
coordinate system since the wellbore has a curved profile but working with this coordinates system has
its own mathematical complexities.
In some cases, the bending stiffness and shear forces might be of a higher significance which will be
investigated in this study.
Because stiff-string models are more complicated than soft-string models, the application of soft-string
models is preferred unless the use of such models introduces considerable errors in the calculations. The
aim of this paper is to determine under what circumstances (i.e. drillstring OD & ID, curvature . . .) the
use of stiff-string model is needed.

Literature review on previous work

Standard soft-string model
In these models the drillstring is assumed to act like a cable/chain and the shearing forces and bending
moments are considered to have negligible contribution to the normal forces and thus friction. This is a
good assumption in many cases.
Soft-string torque and drag modeling was initially developed with Johancsik et al. (1984) and later put
in a standard differential form by Sheppard et al. (1987). Because of the simplicity and the fact of being
user friendly, it has been extensively used in the field and industry applications.
Feiber et al. (1999) developed a computer model for on-line torque and drag analysis in which he
assessed the borehole conditions based on calculating of the friction factors incrementally bottoms-up.
Aarrestad (1994) discussed application of catenary well profile in a well in North Sea that has been
introduced by Sheppard (1987) and later changed to modified catenary profile by Alfsen (1993) and
Aadnoy (2006). It is a cosine hyperbolic function well profile and the drillstring is hanging from two fixed
points.
Mason et al. (2007) pointed out different minor effects that have to be considered in the soft-string
models in order to have a more realistic model. These effects are hydrodynamic viscous drag, tortuosity
as well as buckling effect on frictional forces. A new analytic fully 3-dimensional torque and drag model
was published by Aadnoy, Fazaeli and Hareland (2009) which incorporates many more features. It
introduces on single term, dog-leg severity, for both build/drop and side bend sections.
Stiff-string modeling
Amongst all studies, some of the authors who studied stiffness effect and their methodologies have been
summarized in Table 1.

SPE/IADC-178197-MS

Table 1Different approaches on Stiff-String T&D Modeling

Shear forces In 3-D coordinate system the shear forces act in normal and binormal direction which are
perpendicular to the axial (tangent) direction. This direction is considered to be along the wellbore
trajectory. In solid mechanics the shearing forces are transverse forces and the deflection of a beam due
to these forces, in most cases, is being neglected. The deflection, in other words, is the amount of bent
that is being created in the beam by these forces which is directly related to contact force between the
drillstring and wellbore wall. The effect of shear forces on deflection of a curved element in order to
determine the deflection of the beam has been discussed by D.N. Rocheleau (1992), Dareing (1991) and
T. Huang (1966). The fact is that none of the cases the boundary conditions of the final equation has been
proposed and instead the general solution with constant coefficients has been derived which seems not to
be helpful for industrial applications! Later in this study 2-D force balance with considering shear forces

SPE/IADC-178197-MS

have been analyzed and the result has been implemented into a field-case wellbore. A. McSpadden (2002)
compared between soft string and stiff string model for coiled tubing applications. Some of the cleanest
presentation of drillstring model formulation is by Nordgren (1974) and Walker and Friedman (1977) A
comprehensive paper on formulation is the work of H-S Ho (1986). Ho followed this paper with a
simplification for soft string models (1988). He used the curvilinear coordinate system based on the
Serret-Frenet equations for a curve in space (Zwillinger 1996).
Bending stiffness Neglecting the bending moment causes the contact force to be lower than it is in
reality. In other words, the bending moment will force the pipe harder into the wellbore-wall and this will
affect the normal force (contact force) between the pipe and the wall. The bending stiffness term is EI as
far as Eulers bending theory is assumed, in which E is the modulus of elasticity and I is the moment of
inertia. Our interest is to find out under what circumstances these forces are of higher significance such
that could not be neglected.
The most recent work on this was done by Mitchell (2007). The fact about all previous works is that
they do not implement the model into real field data in order to identify the significance of the bending
stiffness as well as validity of the assumptions they have made. Amongst all, A. McSpadden (2002)
performed a field case comparison. However his work is for coiled-tubing operations and the end
conditions are different between coiled tubing and drilling operations. In addition the coiled tubing can
handle DLS as high as 1800/100 ft and radius of curvature of 2-5 ft which is far beyond what is normally
encountered in daily oil field operations. McSpadden (2002) concluded that soft-string models are
working perfect for most cases unless for DLS higher than 30/100 ft and for stiffer tubular such as
drill-collars as well as for very small radial clearance (i.e. casing, BHA). He also concluded that soft string
models work perfect for most downhole conditions, unless the diameter of the pipe approaches the
diameter of the wellbore. When the radial clearance becomes small or pipe is stiffer a stiff-string model
is required.
H-S Ho (1986, 1988) and L. Zifeng (1993) have developed stiff-string model with the assumption that
the drillstring is in continuous contact with the wellbore-wall. They have also concluded that effect of
stiffness is quite important for the drill-collars and HWDP. Ho has concluded that soft-string models work
with reasonably good estimation of torque and drag in following cases: (1) the drillstring continuously
contacts the borehole i.e. this means that the wellbore trajectory is very smooth. (2) the borehole trajectory
between survey stations is smooth and has zero tortuosity. In such situations the soft-string model provides
very good results within such survey interval.
To take the borehole-drillstring clearance into account and hence to allow the drillstring shape to be
different than the wellbore curvature, the stiff-string model needs to use finite element analysis. In this
regard, some authors have proposed a contact algorithm (S. Menand 2006). This algorithm calculates the
unknown contact points between the drillstring and the wellbore. In one case, for example, contact-points
between the wellbore and the drillstring is modeled by generating a non-linear spring at each node that
generates a reactive force proportional to the excess amount of transverse displacement over the annular
spacing.
S. Menand et. al. (2006) has explained about software, ABIS, which takes the radial clearance in to
account for torque-drag calculations. He believes that with the assumption that the drillstring and wellbore
do not have the same shape, radial spacing of wellbore-drillstring should then be included. This seems to
be more realistic since the wellbore wall is not perfectly smooth and there are tortuosities and local DLS
in the well path.
With all the concerns above its not possible to exactly simulate the well path since it is randomly
tortuoused and many factors are influencing on how tortuous the well path could be. Some authors like
I.R. Rezmer Cooper et. al. (1999) and S. Menand et. al. (2006) believe that in order to take the natural
frequency of an actual well into account, an arbitrary mathematical function (i.e. random functions)

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between the survey stations can be applied in order to correct the well path by addition of random
variations of inclination and azimuth over a given length.

General School of thoughts in Stiff-string T&D Modeling

Most of the research on taking the effect of stiffness into account for drillstring is for the pipe
in-compression. The pipe will be imposed into compression because of more WOB during drilling or extra
frictional drag during RIH. These studies also include the coiled-tubing operations in which the risk of
buckling is higher. In this regard the pipe deflection in the wellbore is being calculated since there is
clearance between the pipe and the wellbore-wall. As a result the pipe and wellbore will not take the same
shapes. The calculation of pipe deflection inside the wellbore has been started by Lubinski (1962). The
Euler beam theory as opposed to Timoshenko beam theory was used by him and later extended for the
pipe in compression by (Paslay & Cernocky, 1991) first by Paslay and Dawson (1968). Analysis of this
type takes care of bending moment and string stiffness indeed.
Paslay (1964), Chandra (1986), Dareing (1991), Rocheleau (1992), Mitchell (buckling) (1992), Walker
& Friedman (1977), G. Handelman (1946), Christman (1976), Li Zifeng (1994) and J. Wu & H.
Juvkam-Wold (1993) have used the above-mentioned methodology in order to obtain the deflection of the
pipe in the wellbore and from that to analyze the severity of string buckling.
When the pipe will be imposed into compression, it deflects and most of authors tried to find out the
contact points of the drillstring and the wellbore. In other words the assumption of continuous contact of
the wellbore and the pipe is not valid anymore. However when it comes to pipe in-tension, the part of the
pipe which is in tension tends to straighten out from a curved position and as a result the contact points
also will change and are not the same as the pipe in-compression case.
The works in which authors have taken the effect of bending stiffness and shearing forces into account
for both pipe in-tension and in-compression in torque and drag modeling are not as many as they are for
compression (buckling) situation. H.S. Ho (1986, 1988), Paslay and Cernocky (1991), Cernocky and
Scholibo (1994, 1995), McSpadden (2011) and Later Mitchell (2007) are those who have analyzed both
situations.
The two general approaches for stiff-string calculations that are followed are:
First the deflection in the pipe is due to axial forces that mostly occur for a pipe in-compression. In this
situation a stand-off between the wellbore-wall and the drillstring is supposed.
Second the deflection of the pipe is due to well-path trajectory which mostly occurs for the pipe when
it is in-tension. In this case the pipe will be considered to be in full-contact with the wellbore wall. This
could be explained by distribution of the side-force (normal force) for the case of full contact and point
contact (contact in connectors/tool joints) that almost create the same amount of friction. As far as
stiff-string assumption is made, the full-contact assumption could be applied if a non-minimum-curvature
well-path trajectory used (i.e. spline type trajectories, helix) (Mitchell, 2008). This is due to non-zero
bending moment and shear forces for these types of trajectories. we model a stiff-pipe that is in full contact
with the wellbore wall. (i.e. the wellbore shape is the drillstring shape.)
The general belief in the industry for torque and drag modeling is that for majority of the cases
soft-string model works well and in other rare cases a combination of soft and stiff-string model can be
used. The combination of the two models means that soft-string model could be used for most part of the
wellbore except high-tortuous and stiffer pipes in the wellbore like BHA that stiff-string models should
be applied.
Finally the new and simple approach for stiff calculations has been introduced. In this robust model,
despite of assuming constant-curvature trajectory and continuous contact between wellbore-wall and pipe,
the effect of bending stiffness has been fulfilled. In other words the problem of vanished bending moment
while using the constant-curvature trajectory has been resolved.

SPE/IADC-178197-MS

New Approach; 3D Analytical Stiff String Model for Torque and Drag
Analysis
Based on work done by H.S. Ho (1986), A. McSpadden (2002) and Mitchell (2007, 2008) for the
wellbores with the constant curvature the bending stiffness doesnt contribute to the normal force in the
curved section. The general idea is that in order to include the effect of stiffness, a non-constant curvature
trajectory (i.e. spline) in which the first and second derivative of the well-path exist (non-zero first and
second order derivative) has to be applied.
The assumption of non-constant curvature trajectory (i.e. spline) in which the first and second
derivative of the well-path exist (non-zero first and second order derivative) will require complicated
advanced trajectory calculations.
Moreover the assumption of stand-off between the pipe and the wellbore and calculating deflection
equation of the pipe in the wellbore and from that obtaining the bending moment and shearing forces by
calculating the second and third derivative of the deflection also result-in sophisticated differential
equations with unknown boundary conditions that are difficult to determine.
Here the aim of this new approach is to derive a simple model that can calculate the effect of pipe
stiffness despite of having constant trajectory well-path trajectory as well as continuous contact of the
wellbore-wall and pipe (zero stand-off).
In this model the following assumptions have been made:

It is independent of the curvature

The force required to shape the pipe along the wellbore will be added as NORMAL force. This
additional normal force is resulted from the bending moment that is imposed in a bend. From the
additional normal force, additional friction force based on coulomb friction model will be
calculated.
Since the model is for a constant curvature bend, it will create constant bending moment and from
this constant bending moment the equivalent normal force will be calculated.
All equivalent normal forces will be applied at the bottom of the curved section where it is the
boundary between the curved and straight section. This is a conservative assumption that will
overestimate the bending moment and equivalent normal force in the bend.
The friction created by equivalent normal force will be added to 3D soft-string model at the
boundary where the straight and curved sections intersect.
This simple model will take the pipe stiffness into account even for constant curvature well-path
as well as continuous contact of the wellbore-wall and the pipe.

The following sketch shows how the model will work in a bend. As it mentioned above the assumption
is that the curved section is fixed at one point and the constant bending moment, M is applied at the
support. The aim is to calculate the amount of additional normal force that is created due to bending
moment, M. One point that should be considered here is that the normal force F is perpendicular to the
curved at each point and this is the reason that a constant bending moment will be created along the bend.
So the assumption of taking the arm length equal to the curve length for calculating the bending moment
is valid. (Figure 1)

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Figure 1the curved section fixed at one end is experiencing constant bending moment along the constant-curvature bend

In the real wellbore the start of the bend considered as fixed end (support-end) and the additional
normal force is calculated at other end of the curved section as follows;
We start with calculating bending moment as following;
(1)
(2)
Substituting equation (1) into (2) will give;
(3)
Force Fstiff is the additional normal force due to pipe stiffness in the bend. This force also represents
the force required to shape the string into the same shape as the borehole. Now with equation (3) and the
assumption of coulomb friction model the frictional force from F will be calculated as follows;
(4)
The soft-string model was developed was in the form of
(5)
The stiff-string model has the same form except the F1 will be replaced by F*1 in which:
(6)
The general stiff-string axial load is the superposition of the general 3D soft-string axial load and the
additional frictional force as follow:
(7)
In order to study how the model works, the model has been implemented into two planned wells which
the results are showing below. It is worth to mention that for both wells the pick-up hookloads are
evaluated.
Both wells are build and hold type wells. The wells specifications have been summarized in Table 2.
Two wells have been planned such that the second well is for more extreme case where the DLS of well

SPE/IADC-178197-MS

#2 is ten times higher than the one for well #1. As Figure 2 shows the results of the 3D soft-string and
stiff-string model, the effect of bending stiffness will not go beyond 0.1% for this well.

Table 2Two wells that used for case studies for new stiffstring model
Specifications

Well # 1

Well # 2

KOP, m
DLS, /30 m
Horizontal Length, m
Drill pipe (OD, ID), in.
BHA (OD, ID), in.
BHA Length, m
Mud Weight, s.g.
Friction Coefficient

900
3
150
(5, 4)
(8, 3)
60
1.28
0.25

900
30
150
(5, 4)
(8, 3)
60
1.28
0.25, 0.4

Figure 2Comparison of the soft-string and stiff-string model for planned well with curved section DLS of 3/30 m

The well# 2 reaches to the target at 1140 mMD. Figure 3 shows the results of soft and stiff-string
hookloads when the friction coefficient of 0.25 is used. Figure 4 shows the calculations for the same well
for very extreme situations with friction coefficient of 0.4. As it has been shown in both Figures 3 and 4,
the effect of bending stiffness will not exceed 1.05% for friction coefficient of 0.25 and 1.9% for friction
coefficient of 0.4 which still is small and negligible. Table 3 summarizes the difference that is introduced
in the calculations for both wells for two cases; one with the bit at TD and one with the maximum
difference. As it is expected maximum error will take place when the BHA is entering and/or exiting the
curved section.

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Figure 3Comparison of the soft-string and stiff-string model for planned well with curved section DLS of 30/30 m with friction
coefficient of 0.25

Figure 4 Comparison of the soft-string and stiff-string model for planned well with curved section DLS of 30/30 m with friction
coefficient of 0.4
Table 3The comparison of soft-string & stiff-string models in
two example wells
Well no.
1
2

friction
coefficient

difference for
bit @ TD (%)

Max. difference (%)

0.25
0.4
0.25
0.4

0.02
0.026
0.03
0.05

0.1
0.15
1.05
1.9

Increasing the pressure will have a small effect on the hookload. However for a static drillstring, the
static friction coefficient can be very high and some effect of stiff pipe can be observed when starting to
move the static drillstring. It also has to be mentioned that drillstring is supposed to have axial movement

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with no rotation. For this reason in the second example well the pipe stiffness has increased to double in
order to figure out whether it has a considerable effect on the resulting hookload. As it has been revealed
in Figure 5 the effect of doubling the bending stiffness compared to the soft-string model will not exceed
2.1%. The difference between soft-string and stiff-string hookload again for two cases one for bit at TD
and the other for the maximum difference for pipe with different degrees of stiffness has been summarized
in Table 4. Different degree of stiffness has been used here in order to mimic the induced additional
stiffness due to pressure differential across the pipe.

Figure 5Comparison of the soft-string, stiff-string and the double-stiffness hookload

Table 4 Comparison of different stiffness for well#2 and
friction coefficient of 0.25
Stiffness (%)

difference for
bit @ TD (%)

Max. difference (%)

100
150
180
200

0.03
0.045
0.053
0.06

1.05
1.57
1.88
2.1

Most of the well-path are of constant trajectories designs except for some rare cases that micro doglegs
or tortuosities are introduced in the wellpath that do not seem to have considerable effect on additional
normal force. The reason, as it has been shown above new approach is that, the major part of the additional
normal force will be created by moving of the stiffer pipe (i.e. BHA and DC) inside the curved section
(i.e. Build-up and/or drop-off). In other words drillpipe does not have much influence on the extra normal
force that is created. This is due to low bending stiffness of the DPs compared to BHAs & DCs. At the
same time for the stiff pipe, it tends to get a smooth constant curvature through a bend rather than to get
the shape of micro-doglegs and this means that assumption of constant curvature well-path is fairly a good
assumption.
In the case of high tortuous well-path in which the wellbore wall and pipe are point-contacted, the
assumption of full-contact of wall and pipe might overestimate the contact area and hence the friction
between drillstring and borehole (Menand, 2006). However it could be mentioned that the distribution of
side forces for both cases are different. In other words the normal forces are distributed along the length
of the pipe for soft-pipe whereas it has only been concentrated at contact points (points A, B & C in Figure
6) for stiff-pipe but it has the same magnitude for both cases. This is where the soft-string will
underestimate the friction since it neglects the effect of bending stiffness on normal force.

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11

Figure 6 Point-contact illustration of pipe and a highly- tortuous wellbore

If the near bit data is used as input instead of ordinary survey data, and hookload calculations will
perform for small intervals, then soft-string model overestimate the friction in the wellbore. This is
because in reality the pipe will never smoothly follow the well-path. Moreover, our stiff-string model also
will calculate very high normal forces when the near bit data are used. The stiff model explained above
works robust for ordinary survey data and wellbores that are not highly tortuous.

Critical limit for soft-string versus stiff-string modeling

In this section the new stiff-string model presented above has been used in order to figure out the critical
limit for soft-string model. In other words, the critical survey distance that soft-string model still gives
reasonable results with less that 1% error for torque and drag calculations have been studied.
As it has been mentioned in equations (1), (2) and (3) in this section:
(8)
And the equation (9) for the relation between radius of curvature, R, and dog-leg severity, DLS as long
as constant-curvature trajectory is concerned:
(9)
Equation (8) then can be written as;
(10)
Or;
(11)
The assumption is that the soft-string model is precise enough to be used if the additional frictional
force due to pipe stiffness is not greater than 1% of the axial force at the particular depth that the
calculation is performed; i.e. inequality (12),
(12)
(13)
By combining inequality (12) and equation (13);
(14)
Based on equation (10) and inequality (14), one can write;
(15)
Or inequality (15) can be written as;
(16)

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Or;
(17)
Inequality (17) can be re-written in terms of radius of curvature, R. From equation (9) the value for R
can be replaced by DLS in the inequality (17);
(18)
Inequality (18) will tell us that for L values greater than the right-hand side of the inequality the
soft-string model for the specific type of drillstring (DP, DC,. . .) and specific wellbore curvature at
particular depth with some value for axial force will give results with less than 1% error and hence is still
precise enough to be used. For L values less than right-hand if the inequality, the stiff-string model
presented in section 4 should be used.
For better understanding of the above criteria, the example wells from Table 2 in section 4 have been
used. Figure 7 shows the results of sensitivity analysis for specific drillcollar with (OD, ID) of (8, 3) for
the parameters DLS, and axial force (Faxial) in order to find out how they will affect the critical limit
(L). As it has been shown in Figure 7, for example the critical survey distances for BHA with (OD, ID)
of (8, 3) and DLS of 3/30 m, 0.25 and axial force of 10 KN is 72.2 m while the critical distance
for drillpipe with (OD, ID) of (5, 4) and the same values of DLS, and axial force is 6.5 m. This means
that use of soft-string model for surveys having smaller distances than 72.2 m for drillcollar and 6.5 m for
drillpipe will give an error larger than 1%. This is where, based on our criteria, new stiff-string model
should be used.

Figure 7Critical survey distance calculations for soft-string versus stiff-string model for two example wells

Assuming constant DLS, and Faxial, the relation between critical distances for drillcollar to drillpipe
based on inequality (18) is;
(19)

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13

The equation (17) states that the critical distance for drill-string is independent of DLS and friction
coefficient as well as axial forces and is only dependent upon the drill string OD & ID. The ratio in
equation (17) for the specific example above is 11. This means that the critical survey distances for
drillcollar is 11 times larger than the one for drillpipe which seems reasonable.

Conclusions

A new simple and robust analytical stiff-string model is presented. This model will take the pipe
bending stiffness into account despite of assuming constant curvature trajectory for the wellbore.
This model avoids sophisticated and time-consuming finite-element calculations. The results of
this model suggests that effect of shear forces and stiffness for T&D calculations is really small
and using time consuming FEM is not needed even for wellbores with very high DLS. In addition
the all FEM analyses require many accurate input data that are not provided in the most of the
wells field-data. Our model uses the ordinary well data that could be gathered from any drilling
data.
If we assume that
No change in bending moment along the curved section.
So we assume the deflection will change and we have the equation of EIy. This assumption
is especially valid for BHA which is in compression and is supported (point-contacted) by
stabilizers. Once the axial force is changing through the BHA, the deflection will change too.
Hence the deflection is not constant. This is the same assumption as the one Dareing also made
in 1991, 1992. But he made this assumption for entire drillstring including BHA. He actually
assumed that the drillpipe is point-contacted by tool-joints and BHA with stabilizers. The fact
about Dareings assumption is that in reality the drillpipe is always in tension and tendency of
increasing deflection by increasing axial force is not valid.
With this condition, the assumption of Minimum-Curvature method which assumes constant
curvature (i.e. Rcte) and hence constant bending that this means constant bending moment. As
the pipe is taking the shape of wellbore, it keeps a constant curvature (i.e. bending) and doesnt
change (based on MCM) whereas in reality the deflection (curvature) will change but the change
is really small. But we cannot ignore this small changes otherwise we are not able to assess the
effect of bending moment (stiff-string modeling) in torque and drag modeling.
Based on the new stiff-string model, a new criteria has been developed that calculates the critical
survey distances limit which the use of soft-string model will result in 1% error in hookload values
due to not considering the bending stiffness. This is where, based on our criteria, the new
stiff-string model shall be used.
One of the major challenges of stiff-string modeling is that the real wellbore profile is barely
recognizable due to distance of survey points. Nowadays surveying will be recorded every 100 ft.
what is the exact path between two successive survey points is not known.

Nomenclature
DLS
E
Faxial
Fstiff
F1
F2
F1*

Dogleg Severity (degree/30 m)

Young Modulus of Elasticity (Pa)
Axial force in the drillstring (N)
Additional normal force due to pipe stiffness (N)
Axial force at the beginning of the curved section (N)
Axial force at the end of the curved section (N)
Axial force (drag) at the beginning of curved section with taking pipe stiffness into
account (N)

14

SPE/IADC-178197-MS

F2*
I

Axial force (drag) at the end of curved section with taking pipe stiffness into account (N)
, (m4)
Moment of Inertia

L
M
Qstiff
R
W

Critical survey distance (m)

Bending moment (N.m)
Additional frictional force due to pipe stiffness
Radius of curvature (m)
Unit weight of the pipe (Kg/m)
Inclination angle (degree)
Azimuth (degree)
Pipe incremental length (m)
Friction coefficient
Dogleg angle (degree)

References
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Completion, March 1997.

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15

Rao, G., Lesso, W.G., Sapijanskas, M., Understanding Torque and Drag: Best Practices and Lessons Learnt from the
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