Alliance yields new understanding of bit wear-drilling performance relationship
- Hughes Christensen Co., Melbourne (Australia)
- Woodside Offshore Petroleum, Perth (Australia)
- Chevron (Nigeria)
This paper explores the potential for reducing, drilling cost by employing an improved understanding of the bit wear-performance relationship and thereby optimizing when to replace a worn bit. Recognizing when a bit is dull and hence past its true economic life is a difficult process. Proper identification of bit dull state depends on several geological, financial, and environmental factors. This study presents full scale rock bit laboratory wear-performance data for all major bit types. Differing bit types were studied in the lab in order to more fully define the effect of wear on performance. A case study employing and validating this methodology will be presented in a separate work. The exact dulling characteristics of diamond and roller cone bits are not well understood. The mechanisms leading to bit wear have been previously discussed in the literature; e.g., gradual abrasive wear and erosion, chipping induced by impacts, thermal induced cracking, and catastrophic dynamic events resulting in immediate failure. Previous laboratory experiments on individual bit components have been utilized to reproduce dulling mechanisms in order to provide a measure of a bit`s resistance to a given dulling characteristic; e.g,, abrasion test of metallic specimens. However, accurate prediction of bit life in a given application based on these measures remains difficult due to composite effects. Therefore drilling system optimization and bit design remain iterative procedures.
- OSTI ID:
- 357736
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-980213-; TRN: IM9932%%81
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 1998 energy sources technology conference, Houston, TX (United States), Feb 1998; Other Information: PBD: 1998; Related Information: Is Part Of Proceedings of the 1998 ASME energy sources technology conference (ETCE`98); PB: [1170] p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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