在过去的四年里，美国能源部 (DOE) 资助了德克萨斯农工大学的一项工作，将基于物理的限制器设计工作流程应用于地热钻探。这些工作流程可帮助作业团队减轻导致井下功能障碍的限制因素，自 2020 年以来一直在美国能源部资助的犹他州 FORGE 中使用，这是一个旨在开发和测试增强型地热系统的示范项目。

在德克萨斯州加尔维斯顿举行的 2024 年 IADC/SPE 国际钻井会议上对DC的视频采访中，德克萨斯 A&M 工程实践教授 Fred Dupriest 解释了基于物理的方法如何提供有效的框架来减轻和解决钻头问题，地质、轨迹和井下工具的挑战。他还解释了团队如何从项目中钻探的前三口井中发现的问题中吸取教训，并将其应用到 2022 年钻探的 FORGE 16B (78)-32 井的设计中。具体来说，他讨论了团队如何能够减少在前三口井的早期镜头中观察到的机械钻速大幅下降。

Over the past four years, the US Department of Energy (DOE) has funded an effort at Texas A&M University to adapt physics-based limiter design workflows into geothermal drilling. These workflows, which help operating teams mitigate the limiters that lead to downhole dysfunction, have been in use since 2020 at the DOE-funded Utah FORGE, a demonstration project aimed at developing and testing enhanced geothermal systems.

In this video interview with DC from the 2024 IADC/SPE International Drilling Conference in Galveston, Texas, Fred Dupriest, Professor of Engineering Practices at Texas A&M, explains how a physics-based approach can provide an effective framework to mitigate and address drill bit, geologic, trajectory and downhole tool challenges. He also explains how the team learned from issues seen in the first three wells drilled as part of the project and applied them to the design of the FORGE 16B (78)-32 well, drilled in 2022. Specifically, he discusses how the team was able to reduce the large decline in ROP observed in early footage of the first three wells.