Case Study: Robert Gordon University achieves safer shale gas well casing design with Hexagon ODYSSEE CAE

Optimisation of casing buckling and deformation responses in shale gas wells

Robert Gordon University, a top modern university in Scotland, was challenged by the high rate of casing failures in shale gas wells. These integrity failures are extremely costly to repair and difficult to prevent, as optimizing the 12 design parameters for a well casing traditionally requires a prohibitively expensive number of finite element analysis (FEA) simulations. The university partnered with vendor Hexagon to address this engineering problem.

Using Hexagon's ODYSSEE CAE software, the university created a highly accurate reduced order model from 517 FEA simulations. This model allowed them to perform a sensitivity analysis and optimize the casing design in just 21 iterations with near-zero computation time. The solution from Hexagon delivered spectacular results: the optimized design achieved an 87% decrease in stress and an 89% reduction in total deformation, while the safety factor improved by over 300%.

Robert Gordon University

James Njuguna

Professor of Composite Materials & Academic Strategic Lead