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ABSTRACT
Rotating drill pipe passing through dog-legs suffers fatigue damage due to cyclic bending stresses. Curves of the
cumulative fatigue damage incurred in either steel or aluminum drill pipe going through such dog-legs are presented.
These curves provide means for properly planning the
rate of angle build-up in directionally drilled wells and allow discarding of drill pipe which has been fatigue-damaged in dog-legs.
INTRODUCTION
Drill pipe which is subjected to bending as it rotates, experiences a cyclically varying bending stress. If this bending stress is sufficiently large, the drill pipe is fatigue-damaged by each revolution, and ages as fatigue damage accumulates.
Drill pipe can be bent intentionally, as in the case of
directionally drilled holes, or unintentionally due to undesired changes in hole direction caused by variations in
formation properties, weight on bit, etc. These changes in
hole direction, whether intentional or unintentional, are
called dog-legs.
The theoretical limits of dog-legs which are permissible
before the drill pipe begins to fatigue can be calculated!
However, in wells where the maximum permissible dogleg is exceeded, the concept of cumulative fatigue damage
can be used to estimate damage suffered by the drill pipe.
This concept has already been used to estimate the cumulative fatigue damage of drill pipe due to drilling vessel
roll.' The purpose of this paper is to extend the usage of
the cumulative fatigue damage concept to drill pipe in doglegs, and to draw conclusions which may be beneficial in
preventing numerous frustrating and expensive drill pipe
failures.
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FIG. I-FATIGUE DAMAGE OF STEEL DRILL PIPE IN GRADUAL DOGLEGS (NON-CORROSIVE ENVIRONMENT: DRILL PIPE,
AND
5 IN. GRADE E STEEL; ROTARY SPEED, 100 RPM; DRILLING RATE,
10 FT/HR).
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359
PERCENT FATIGUE 1I FE
EXPENDED IN A 30 FOOT INTERVAL
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Figs. 1 and 2 were prepared on the basis of fatigue experiments conducted by Hughes Tool Co.' Since the results of these experiments display a great scatter, and since
the lowest envelope of the data is used, it should not be
construed that drill pipe will instantaneously fail when the
calculated fatigue damage reaches 100 per cent. The actual
connotation is that some joints of pipe would fail under
such conditions, but most of them would last appreciably
longer.
FATIGUE OF DRILL PIPE IN IDEALIZED
ABRUPT DOG-LEGS
In Ref. 1 it is demonstrated that if the change of hole
angle over a 30-ft interval in a gradual and long dog-leg is
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Inclination
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Furthermore, assume that the environment is non-corrosive, that the length of drill pipe below the dog-legs is
10,000 ft and that rotary speed and drilling rate are 100
rpm and 10 ftlhr respectively. In the interval of 6,100 to
6,150 ft, the change of angle in 50 ft is 3 0; i.e., the dogleg severity is 6/100 ft.
Point B of Fig. 1 indicates that the fatigue life expended for these conditions is 29 per cent over a 30-ft interval, or 29(50/30) = 48 per cent over the interval under
consideration. Proceeding similarly, for the interval of
6,150 to 6,200 ft, Point C of Fig. 1 shows that the fatigue
life expended is 20 per cent. In the next interval, it is seen
that the dog-leg severity is too small to cause any further
fatigue damage to the drill pipe. Thus, total fatigue life
expended in this particular case is 68 per cent. Moreover,
it is easy to see that if the well is drilled deeper, the calculated fatigue damage for this particular dog-leg might
JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY
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DOG-LEG SEVERI Y
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REVOLUTIONS TO FAILURE, N
FIG. 4--FATIGUE DAMAGE OF ALUMINUM DRILL PIPE IN GRADUAL
DOG-LEGS (FOR 5lh-IN_ ALUMINUM DRILL PIPE: ROTARY SPEED,
100 RPM; DRLLING RATE, 10 FT/HR; AND MUD, 10 LB/GAL).
362
FIG.
5--S-N
lating, dog-legs were assumed to be gradual, and this assumption yields conservative results.
CONCLUSIONS
1. The rate of drill pipe fatigue damage, which can be
obtained from the charts of this paper, increases with the
severity of the dog-leg, and the tension in the drill pipe
at the dog-leg.
2. Provided well conditions are suitable for its usage,
aluminum drill pipe will suffer much less fatigue damage
than steel drill pipe in dog-legs or when drilling from a
floating vessel.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank Pan American Petroleum
Corp. for having released this paper to the industry, and
Reynolds Metals Co. for permission to use results of their
full-scale aluminum drill pipe fatigue experiments. The
authors thank the following for having read the paper
and presented constructive criticism: P. F. Hawley, A. H.
Jageler, W. R. Franey, J. A. Muckleroy and J. P. Barrett
of Pan American Petroleum Corp.; H. B. Woods and A.
P. Farr of Hughes Tool Co.; H. M. Rollins of Drilco Oil
Tool Co.; H. V. Menking, L. E. Pennington, R. S. Dalrymple and L. F. Wong of Reynolds Metals Co.; and W. B.
Reinhold of Abegg and Reinhold.
REFERENCES
1. Lubinski, A.: "Maximum Permissible DogLegs in Rotary Boreholes", Jour. Pet. Tech. (Feb., 1961) 175.
2. Hansford, J. E. and Lnbinski, A.: "The Efleets of Drilling Vessel Pitch or Roll on Kelly and Drill Pipe Fatigue", Jour. Pet.
Tech. (Jan., 1964) 77.
3. Lubinski, A.: "Chart for Determination of Hole Curvature
(Dog-Leg Severity) ", Paper presented at the API Mid-Continent District Study Committee on Straight Hole Drilling, Oklahoma City, Okla. (Oct., 1956). Published under various titles
in the trade journals. Original text available from the author.
4. "Tabular Method for Determining the Change of the Overall
Angle and Dog-Leg Severity", Bull. DB, API.
5. Boice, E. G. and Dalrymple, R. S.: "The Design and Performance Characteristics of Aluminum Drill Pipe", Jour. Pet. Tech.
(Dec., 1963) 1285.
6. Miner, M. A.: "Cumulative Damage in Fatigue", Jour. Applied
Meeh., 12; Trans., ASME (1945) 67, A159.
7. Manson, S. S. et al.: "Further Investigation of a Relation for
Cumulative Fatigue Damage in Bending", Jour. of Eng. for
Ind., Trans., ASME (Feb. 1965).
APPENDIX
DRILL PIPE UNDER TENSION IN
GRADUAL AND LONG DOG-LEGS
Figs. 1 through 4 in the body of the paper were prefared in the following manner. Let f denote the fraction
of drill pipe life expended in an interval of an infinitely
long, gradual dog-leg. Then:
B
f=JIi'
(A-l)
where B = number of drill pipe revolutions to drill the interval; and N = number of revolutions to failure of the
MARCH, 1966
60Rd
'
(A-2)
where R = rotary table speed, rpm; d = length of the dogleg interval, ft; and V = drilling rate, fUhr.
The denominator N of Eq. 1 depends on the bending
stress SB in the pipe, and on the ratio T/ A, denoted S,:
T
S'=A'
(A-3)
EDc"
(A-4)
= c(KL) ,
where c = hole curvature, radians/in.; and
Co
(A-5)
L = one-half
the length of a drill pipe, in., from Eq. 2t in Ref. 1, and.
K is defined as follows:
K
= V T/(EI)
(A-6)
where I = the moment of inertia of the drill pipe's crosssection with respect to its diameter, in"
The simplification of Eq. 12 of Ref. 1 by which Eq.
A-5 is obtained, is justified for drill pipe under high tension, in the Appendix of Ref. 1 under the section entitled
Drill Pipe Under Tension in Gradual and Long Dog-Legs.
The value (N revolutions to failure) for steel drill pipe
can be read from Fig. 5 of Ref. 2 as function of the
product of SB (denoted a in Ref. 2) and T, defined by
Eq. 1 of Ref. 2. Fig. 5 in this paper is a corresponding
curve for aluminum drill pipe.
Assumptions underlying use of Fig. 5 of Ref. 2 and
Fig. 5 of this paper are the same as in Ref. 2 and will
not be discussed here.
Eq. A-5 is valid if only tool joints, and not drill pipe,
contact the side of the hole. Fig. 3 of Ref. 1 gives the limiting conditions for which 4V2 -in., 16.6 Ib/ ft drill pipe will
contact the side of the hole. From the inspection of that
figure in conjunction with that of Figs. 1 through 4 of
this paper, it can be concluded that frequently there is
contact of the drill pipe with the side of the hole. Use of
Eq. A-5 in the derivations upon which Figs. 1 through 4
are based, is justified, however, as it leads to conservative
results, the reason being that any contact between tool
joints reduces the bending stress in the pipe at the tool
joint.
***
363