Characteristics of Reservoir Boundary Ranging with While-Drilling Impulse Sound Source

Reservoir boundary distance measurement is a key technology in geosteering drilling. In this field, it is difficult to balance detection precision and depth. This paper proposes a method to measure reservoir boundary distance using a drill-attached impulse sound source equipped with a reflector. The COMSOL Multiphysics (COMSOL) is used to construct a while-drilling reservoir model with a reflector and verify the model’s effectiveness through the real-axis integration method. Under this model, the dimensions of the reflector are analyzed, the relative ranging error under different distances is calculated, and source distance combinations and reservoir interface dip angles are considered. Moreover, the effectiveness of this method is verified through the results of ranging for two sets of actual geological parameters. These results show that the rotating parabolic reflector (depth 45 mm, opening radius 12.2 mm) has a good energy bunching effect. When the dominant excitation frequency of the sound source is 8 kHz, and the source distance combination is 2 m and 4 m, the minimum relative ranging error for the reservoir boundary at 7 m is 2.1%. The relative error becomes smaller when the reservoir boundary dip angle and source distance are smaller. When the source distance is 2 m or 7 m, and the dip angle is between −20, 20 degrees, the relative error is below 15%. Simulations with actual formation parameters indicate that the proposed method attains good ranging precision.