Design of a Testing Facility for Investigation of Drill Pipes Fatigue Failure

Abstract

Drillstring and down-hole tool failure usually results from failing to control one or more of the vibration mechanisms. The solution starts with the ability to measure different modes of vibration, hence identifying different vibration mechanisms. Lateral, torsion and axial are vibration modes that take place when drill pipes run into problems downhole. Due to the three modes of vibration mechanisms such as bit bounce, stick-slip, lateral shocks, bit and bottom hole assembly (BHA) whirl, parametric and torsional resonance occur. Understanding the causes of the destructive loads is the main step towards developing approaches to prevent or reduce their effects, hence improving drilling performance. Vibration modes and mechanisms lead to failure of the drill pipes, BHA and drill bits. Drill pipes fatigue failure is very common due to capability of producing all vibration modes and mechanisms. Drill pipe and downhole tool assembly failure usually result from failing to have power over one or more of these vibration mechanisms. A novel in house experimental setup has been developed to mimic downhole axial, lateral and torsional vibration modes and mechanisms in drilling operations. In this paper, we focus on the design and construction of the testing facility. A number of tests were conducted to validate the capability and performance of the test setup. Drill pipe fatigue failure due to lateral cyclic stresses induced in the drill pipe has also been investigated and presented in this paper. The results show that operating on a rotation speed higher than 90% of the drillstring critical speed leads to yielding in the drillstring.

Failure Analysis of Drill Pipe during Working Process in a Deep Well: A Case Study

“…Their test results show that the gas-injection volume has more impact on drill-pipe erosion compared to the rate of penetration, and a high rate of penetration will suppress the erosion wear of drill pipe [7]. Abdo et al (2017) considered that the main reason causing drill pipes failure is fatigue due to vibration. Hence, a novel in-house experimental setup has been developed to mimic downhole axial, lateral and torsional vibration modes and mechanisms in drilling operations, and investigate the drill-pipe fatigue failure due to cyclic stresses, Processes 2022, 10, 1765 2 of 13 on account of the research deficiency of quantitative assessment methods of drill-pipe fatigue [8].…”

“…Abdo et al (2017) considered that the main reason causing drill pipes failure is fatigue due to vibration. Hence, a novel in-house experimental setup has been developed to mimic downhole axial, lateral and torsional vibration modes and mechanisms in drilling operations, and investigate the drill-pipe fatigue failure due to cyclic stresses, Processes 2022, 10, 1765 2 of 13 on account of the research deficiency of quantitative assessment methods of drill-pipe fatigue [8]. Luo et al (2020) provided a modified model for the S-N data, revealing the correlation between the fatigue life and fatigue limit, equivalent stress amplitude reflecting the effect of stress ratio to predict the fatigue damage of drill-pipe.…”

Drillstring Failure: Analytical and Experimental Approach

“…Such drilling factors include threaded connections. A full scale mathematical modeling to predict fatigue life in a threaded connection is proposed in [15]. This paper aims at gaining deeper understanding of the complex behaviour of drillstring under vibrations and its detrimental effect on drilling operation.…”