Mud Hammer

Background

Drilling for exploration and field preparation is a primary component of exploitation of natural resources, including oil, gas, water, minerals, and geothermal energy. Hammer drilling is an efficient technique regarding cost and speed in shallow depth. However, pressure, density, and viscous effects typically degrade its advantages with increasing depth. Researchers at the University of Nevada Reno have created a novel drilling method and drill that overcome this problem.

Description

Our researchers have created a drill and novel drilling method that combines rock hammer action with water/mud pressure/velocity waves (PVW), in which mud expansion energy is synchronously converted into percussion energy. Our method and apparatus relieves downhole hammer drills from high mud pressure; therefore, increasing bit life, improving trajectory alignment, decreasing cost, adding benefits in seismic communications, etc.

Advantages

• Our patented, coordinate control of hammering action can make the drilling steerable surprisingly simple.
• Our system increases penetration rate into the ground.
• Our method can increase the drill bit’s impact energy for rock breaking by concentrating the overall, cycle-averaged energy to a shorter time period.
• Our drilling method increases the mechanical advantage of the hammering action.
• Our system provides dynamic control of the pressure at the bottom of the drill hole by periodic, positive displacement of a minute amount of mud volume by the axial pumping effects of the reciprocating drill bits.
• Our method reduces energy loss due to reduced compression energy of the thrusting drill bit.

Patent

• 9,068,396: Drilling Apparatus and Method
• Continuation 9,334,692: Drilling Apparatus and Method

UNR12-001