A Novel Rate of Penetration Optimization Method for Vertical Wells Based on an Improved Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm

The rate of penetration serves as a crucial indica-tor reflecting drilling rig efficiency. Maintaining high drilling speed is crucial in reducing drilling costs and non-drilling time. However, due to the complex nonlinearity inherent in the drilling process, optimizing and adjusting drilling speed faces high-dimensional variations and intricate constraints. This complex nonlinearity makes it challenging to obtain a suitable set of operating parameter values. To overcome these difficulties in rate of penetration optimization, we propose a novel rate of penetration optimization method aimed at addressing high-dimensional changes and complex constraints. First, the support vector regression method is introduced to formulate the drilling rate optimization problem. Then, an improved particle swarm optimization algorithm (IPSO) is developed to address the chal-lenge of high-dimensional variation in drilling rate optimization. Moreover, a method for analyzing vertical well longitudinal force is introduced to handle constraints. IPSO demonstrates superior global search capabilities compared to other algorithms in the IEEE CEC2015 benchmark functions. The developed drilling optimization method is validated using actual data. Results from two groups of experiments indicate that compared to manual adjustment, the developed method improved by 15.31 % and 15.38 %, respectively.