Methods of evaluating performance of cutting elements for earth-boring tools

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10282495-B2
Application number	US-201514810053-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 27, 2015
Priority date	Jul 27, 2015
Publication date	May 7, 2019
Grant date	May 7, 2019

Abstract

Methods of evaluating prototype cutting elements for earth-boring tools may involve generating first and second sets of virtual representations of cutting elements from first and second sets of used cutting elements. First and second sets of measures of damage corresponding to damage for each of the first and second sets set of virtual representations of cutting elements may be determined. A best-performing set of cutting elements from the first and second sets of used cutting elements according to the first and second sets of measures of damage may be identified by performing a statistical analysis.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of evaluating a set of cutting elements for an earth-boring tool, comprising:
having a borehole drilled by a mixed-cutter earth-boring tool comprising a first set of cutting elements and a second set of cutting elements secured to the mixed-cutter earth-boring tool to produce a first set of used cutting elements and a second set of used cutting elements, wherein at least one region of the mixed-cutter earth-boring tool has at least one cutting element of each of the first set of cutting elements and the second set of cutting elements, and the cutting elements of the second set of cutting elements have at least one material property that is different from a material property of the cutting elements of the first set of cutting elements;
using a virtual-representation capture device selected from the group consisting of a digital camera, a scanner, an optoacoustic imaging device, and a confocal microscopy device to generate a first set of virtual representations of at least portions of the cutting elements from the first set of used cutting elements using a process selected from the group consisting of capturing reflected light waves, capturing reflected sound waves, and probing;
using the virtual-representation capture device to generate a second set of virtual representations of at least portions of the cutting elements from the second set of used cutting elements using the process selected from the group consisting of capturing reflected light waves, capturing reflected sound waves, and probing;
determining a first set of measures of damage corresponding to damage for each of the first set of virtual representations of the at least portions of the used cutting elements;
determining a second set of measures of damage corresponding to damage for each of the second set of virtual representations of the at least portions of the used cutting elements; and
identifying a set of cutting elements with a smallest amount of normalized damage from the first and second sets of used cutting elements according to the first and second sets of measures of damage by statistically analyzing the first and second sets of measures of damage and normalizing the first and second sets of measures of damage relative to at least one factor selected from the group consisting of relative placement, work rate, predicted loads, actual loads, operating temperature, heat flux, position, orientation, velocity, and exposure.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying the set of cutting elements with the smallest amount of normalized damage from the first and second sets of used cutting elements comprises normalizing the first and second sets of measures of damage based on work rate.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein normalizing the first and second sets of measures of damage comprises:
plotting each of the first and second sets of measures of damage on a graph having a value of the measures of damage on one axis and distance of respective used cutting elements of the first and second sets of used cutting elements from a central axis of the same earth-boring tool on another, perpendicular axis;
fitting a curve to the first and second sets of measures of damage on the graph; and
subtracting a difference between each respective measure of damage of the first and second sets of measures of damage and each respective curved measure of damage of the curve at each corresponding radial distance from the central axis of the same earth-boring tool from each respective measure of damage of the first and second sets of measures of damage to obtain the normalized first and second sets of measures of damage.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein normalizing the first and second sets of measures of damage comprises:
performing a regression analysis to generate a curve fit to the first and second sets of measures of damage with respect to distance of respective used cutting elements of the first and second sets of used cutting elements from a central axis of the same earth-boring tool; and
subtracting a difference between each respective measure of damage of the first and second sets of measures of damage and each respective curved measure of damage of the curve at each corresponding radial distance from the central axis of the same earth-boring tool from each respective measure of damage of the first and second sets of measures of damage to obtain the normalized first and second sets of measures of damage.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein normalizing the first and second sets of measures of damage comprises:
determining a work rate of each used cutting element of the first and second sets of used cutting elements during use;
dividing each work rate of each used cutting element of the first and second sets of used cutting elements by a greatest work rate experienced by a cutting element of the first and second sets of used cutting elements to generate a set of work rate ratios; and
dividing each measure of damage of the first and second sets of measures of damage by a respective work rate ratio of the set of work rate ratios corresponding to a respective cutting element of the first and second sets of used cutting elements for each measure of damage.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein normalizing the first and second sets of measures of damage comprises:
determining a work rate of each used cutting element of the first and second sets of used cutting elements during use; and
dividing each measure of damage of the first and second sets of measures of damage by a quantitative measure of damage of a respective cutting element of the first and second sets of used cutting elements having experienced a greatest work rate.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying the set of cutting elements with the smallest amount of normalized damage from the first and second sets of used cutting elements comprises identifying the set of cutting elements with the smallest amount of normalized damage between a set of prototype cutting elements and a set of cutting elements of a preexisting design.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the first and second sets of measures of damage corresponding to damage for each of the respective first and second sets of virtual representations of the at least portions of the cutting elements comprises quantitatively determining at least one of volume loss, spall area, spall height, spall width, spall cross-sectional area, wear scar area, wear scar height, wear scar width, size of internal flaws, and quantity of internal flaws for each of the respective first and second sets of virtual representations of the at least portions of the cutting elements.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the first and second sets of measures of damage corresponding to damage for each of the first and second sets of virtual representations of the at least portions of the cutting elements comprises digitally analyzing photographs of the at least portions of the used cutting elements from the first and second sets of used cutting elements to generate first and second sets of quantitative measures of damage.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying the set of cutting elements with the smallest amount of normalized damage from the first and second sets of used cutting elements according to the first and second sets of measures of damage comprises generating first and second sets of comparative performance ratios corresponding to the first and second sets of used cutting elements by dividing an average of measures of damage associated with each of two used cutting elements laterally adjacent to a respective used cutting element by a measure of damage associated with the respective used cutting element for e

Assignees

• Baker Hughes Inc

Inventors

• Izbinski Konrad T
• Dick Aaron J
• Lyons Nicholas J
• Flores Alejandro
• Patel Suresh G
• Degeorge Jarod

Classifications

• E21B10/55

  with preformed cutting elements · CPC title

• G06F30/20

  Design optimisation, verification or simulation (optimisation, verification or simulation of circuit designs G06F30/30) · CPC title

• E21B10/00

  Drill bits (specially adapted for deflecting the direction of boring {E21B7/064}; with means for collecting substances E21B27/00) · CPC title

• G06F17/5009 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G05B19/182 Primary

  characterised by the machine tool function, e.g. thread cutting, cam making, tool direction control (G05B19/21 - G05B19/40 take precedence) · CPC title