EFFECT OF CUTTING PARAMETERS ON TEMPERATURE OF A SINGLE POLYCRYSTALLINE DIAMOND COMPACT (PDC) CUTTER

Abstract

The usage of polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) drill bit has significantly increased in the petroleum industry due to its high rate of penetration and long life. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the temperature effect to PDC bit, specifically its cutter during the drilling operation. Temperature causes the degradation of the PDC cutter by reducing its lifespan. A thorough understanding of factors that affect the temperature of the PDC cutter is crucial in predicting the optimum cutting parameters. Hence, it is the objective of this study to evaluate the effect of cutting parameters on the temperature of the single PDC cutter in rock cutting. In this study, a rock cutting experiment was conducted by using a lathe machine tested on single PDC cutter. The parameters involve were rotational speed and depth of cut. The temperature was captured using an infrared thermographic camera, FLIR T640 and the spot measurement was used to pinpoint the temperature readings at the tooltip of PDC cutter. It was found that the depth of cut had the greater influence on temperature when measured over a range of 16 levels as the temperature increase in linear trend with increasing depth of cut as well as the high correlation of the plot (R2=0.98). However, tests for rotational speed showed less significant influence on temperature when measured over a range of four levels where the percentage error of the temperature for each rotational speed was less than 10%. It can be concluded that only the depth of cut has a significant effect on the temperature of a single PDC cutter.
 Keywords: Rock cutting, temperature, Polycrystalline Diamond Compact (PDC), rotational speed, depth of cut