Phase-field analysis of fracture in casing–cement–rock wellbore systems: Effects of casing eccentricity and cement–rock interface strength

Predicting the initiation and propagation of cracks in heterogeneous wellbore systems under complex in-situ conditions remains challenging. We present a hybrid phase-field fracture framework to model crack growth in heterogeneous wellbore systems with weak interfaces. The framework is first validated against benchmark problems with available analytical and numerical solutions. Subsequently, numerical experiments are conducted to isolate the effects of interface strength and casing eccentricity on crack growth. The results show that casing eccentricity strongly influences both the pressure at crack initiation and the resulting crack paths, reducing the crack initiation pressure by up to 30% relative to the concentric configuration. For the examples considered here, beyond a critical eccentricity threshold of 50%, localized shear stresses drive the nucleation of inclined cracks in the rock formation in addition to radial cracking – a failure mode absent in concentric configurations. For sufficiently weak interfaces (i.e., interfaces with 30% of the toughness of the surrounding bulk material), radially propagating cracks in the cement sheath are deflected along the interface rather than penetrating into the rock formation. This deflection delays stress relaxation within the sheath, promotes the nucleation of additional radial cracks, and increases the risk of sustained casing pressure and wellbore failure. Finally, a three-dimensional simulation reveals depth-dependent crack nucleation, stress-shadow effects that suppress full-depth crack growth, and crack coalescence along the cement–rock interface – phenomena that are fundamentally inaccessible under plane-strain assumptions – demonstrating the applicability of the framework to realistic heterogeneous wellbore systems.