Experimental Investigation of the Effects of Rotational Speed and Weight on Bit on Drillstring Vibrations, Torque and Rate of Penetration

Abstract

Drillstring vibrations namely axial, lateral and torsional vibrations are the primary reason for downhole tool failure and reduction in rate of penetration (ROP). Factors like bit design, bottom hole assembly, bit-rock interaction, rotational speed, wellbore hydraulics, weight on bit (WOB) and drillstring-borehole interaction affect vibrations, out of which only rotational speed and WOB can be changed in real-time to minimize vibrations. It has been a topic of interest to understand and model downhole vibrations, minimize them and find an optimum range of drilling parameters to increase the drilling efficiency. This article presents the results of experimental studies conducted on a fully automated drilling rig to examine the effects of drilling parameters on drillstring vibrations, torque and rate of penetration. The study is different in terms of the high-speed range and the use of axial vibration transmitter to measure the vibration severity as per ISO standards. Experiments were performed on two different rock samples with varying strength. Perfect hole cleaning with negligible fluid flow effect was assumed. Each experiment was run for an average of six minutes collecting an average of 120 data points which were then averaged out for analysis. Parametric study was carried out to analyze the impacts of bit strength to rock strength ratio, bit constant and intrinsic specific energy on torque using existing model. As the drillstring was stiff and small, torsional oscillations were not observed and only lateral and axial vibrations were studied. Effect of drilling parameters and vibration on ROP was studied only on soft rock sample as ROP on hard rock was too small to be recorded Once the input parameters for the analytic model were methodically selected they show good agreement with the experimental data. The results of the parametric study revealed that estimation of torque relies heavily on the bit constant. Axial vibrations increased when rotational speed was near to the natural frequency of the drillstring which resulted in increase of ROP. Type of formation affected the magnitude of lateral and axial vibrations. Reducing both rotational speed and WOB helps to minimize lateral vibrations in hard formations while reducing rotational speed can effectively reduce axial vibrations.

Designing Smart drilling fluids using modified nano silica to improve drilling operations in Geothermal wells

“…Drill string vibration is increased by the hardness of the drilled formation, resulting in downhole tool failure. Observations noted that variations in HPHT geothermal wells initiate thermal stresses on the casing (Bavadiya et al, 2017). Therefore, failure of the casing is as a result of thermally induced stress fatigue when stresses or forces surpass the yield stress of the casing material (Shadravan and Amani 2012;Teodoriu 2013;Wu et al, 2020).…”

A Review Dynamic Vibration on Drill String in Drilling Operation

“…Relation between ROP, Weight on Bit (WOB), rotational speed, and depth of cut can be describe with analytical bit response. Result showed axial vibration also increase as torsional torque increase ( (Bavadiya et al, 2017). Stick-slip interaction between bit and rock can be describe as dynamic two-degree freedom models (Alqaradawi at.al, 2018).…”

Nonlinear Dynamic Characteristic Analysis of a Landing String in Deepwater Riserless Drilling

“…Many works, using theoretical analyses [6,7], numerical simulations [8], and experimental investigations [9,10], have been conducted to investigate the dynamics behaviour of on-land drilling string to determine the change regulations of the friction, torsion, and axial force under various working conditions. ese research results guided the operation of on-land drilling operation.…”