Rapid deployment drilling system for on-site inspections under a comprehensive test ban treaty vol. 1: description, acquisition, deployment, and operation vol. 2: appendices
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has been signed by many countries, including the US. The US Senate will start discussions of CTBT ratification in the near future. The Treaty aims to prevent any nuclear explosion from being conducted. A verification system is being implemented. It includes the possibility of On-Site Inspections (OSI) in a country where a suspicious seismic signal has been identified, which could come from a clandestine nuclear test. As part of an OSI, the use of drilling is allowed by the CTBT so as to obtain irrefutable proof of a Treaty violation. Such proof could be in the form of diagnostics of very high gamma radiation levels and high temperatures underground, which could not be explained by a natural source. A typical situation is shown in Figure 1, where the OSI team must find a nuclear cavity underground when only an approximate location is inferred. This calls for the ability to do directional drilling. Because there is no need for large borings and to minimize the cost and size of the equipment, slim-hole drilling is adequate. On that basis, an initial study by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory [1] concluded that coiled-tubing (C-T) was the most attractive option for OSI drilling (Figure 2). Then, a preliminary design of a C-T Rapid Deployment Drilling System (RDDS) was performed by Maurer Engineering of Houston, TX [2]. Although a drilling mud system is also included in the RDDS definition, the preferred mode of operation of the RDDS would be drilling with air and foam. This minimizes water requirements in cases when water may be scarce at the OSI site. It makes the required equipment smaller than when a mud system is included. And it may increase the drilling rates, by eliminating the ''chip hold-down'' effect of a mud column. Following this preliminary design study, it was determined that the preferred bottom-hole assembly for such a system would be the Viper system of Schlumberger Anadrill, with one essential modification from the version used in the oil-and-gas industry: the ability to record very high gamma levels. Under contract with LLNL, Anadrill modified the Viper gamma tool, a NaI-based probe, and verified that it provided reliable gamma data up to 64,000 cps, as opposed to the less than 200 cps encountered in normal applications [3].
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Nonproliferation and National Security (NN) (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 14800
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-CR-132142-VOL-1; GJ1200000; GJ1200000; TRN: AH200130%%90
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: 1 Nov 1999
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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