Which Model? An Advisor
Learning objectives
- Answer three questions, the problem, the data, and the regime, and get the chain this course would reach for
- See the assumptions you are accepting, each traceable to the section that earned it
- Get a pointer to the Python preset to start from, one click into the Playground
- Trust that every one of the 96 combinations lands on runnable code
The Course as a Decision
The reference deck held the models; the presets made them runnable; this section chooses among them. The advisor asks three questions, the problem you face, the data you hold, and the stress regime you are in, and assembles the chain this course would reach for. It names the assumptions each step commits you to, with the section that earned each one, and it points at the Python preset of Section 12.3 to start from, one click into the Playground. It recommends a starting point; it does not answer, because the judgment it defers to is the one this course has built in you.
The three axes are six problems, four data situations, and four regimes, which is 96 combinations, and every one of them lands on a runnable preset. Ask about a wellbore with core and it calibrates the strength before the Kirsch window; ask with an image log and it inverts the breakouts for SHmax first; ask with logs only and it hands you the mud window as a band, not a line, because the strength is a bracket. Ask about a fracture in reverse faulting and it flips the fracture plane to horizontal; ask about a fault with the regime unknown and it bounds the answer with the polygon. The data you have changes the chain, the regime changes the geometry, and the advisor tracks both.
Starting Point, Not Answer
The honesty of the advisor is in what it refuses to do. It will not tell you whether your well is stable or your fault will slip; it tells you which chain to run, what you are assuming, and where the uncertainty lives, then hands you the code to compute it on your own field. A situation the canned rules do not cover falls back to the stress model of Part 8 and the reference deck of Section 12.2, which always apply. That is the discipline the whole course has taught: match the situation to the model, name the assumptions, carry an anchor to catch a blunder, and read the misfit honestly. The advisor is that discipline, made into a tool. One section remains, the outlook, where the Lab hands the course back to the field it came from.
References
- Zoback, M. D. (2007). Reservoir Geomechanics. Cambridge University Press.
- Plumb, R., Edwards, S., Pidcock, G., Lee, D., & Stacey, B. (2000). The mechanical earth model concept. IADC/SPE Drilling Conference, SPE 59128.