RezaMajidi,StefanZ.Miska,SandeepTammineniPDC.PDFVIP

As the drilling industry still suffers from low and undesirable rates of penetration in hard formations, there is an ever increasing need for better understanding of the cuter-rock interaction and the factors that affect the rate of penetration. Mechanical specific energy (MSE), the concept which is used as a measure of drilling efficiency, can be described as the amount of energy required to cut a unit volume of rock. The concept of mechanical specific energy was introduced to drilling industry by Teale (1965) [1] as the work required for removing a unit volume of rock. It is related to torque, rotary speed, weight on bit and the rate of penetration, all of which are the main parameters recorded during drilling operations. 480 × Torque × RPM 4 ×WOB MSE = 2 + 2 (1) d × ROP πd 2 MSE has the unit of N/m or psi, which is the same unit as pressure. MSE concept has provided a way to measure the drilling efficiency by monitoring the amount of mechanical specific energy being put into the system and the minimum required specific energy to drill the rock. Lab tests performed by Teal demonstrated that the energy spent to destroy a unit volume of the rock is relatively constant, regardless of changes in ROP, WOB or RPM. Experiments have shown MSE values to be very close to the Uniaxial Compressive Strength (UCS) of the rock. Thus, MSE can be used as an assessment of the efficiency of the drilling action by measuring the MSE during drilling and comparing it with the rocks UCS numerically [2]. UCS efficiency = (2) MSE