UTHM Conference Portal, International Conference on Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering (ICME2015)

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DEVELOPMENT OF PROTOTYPE FOR POLYCRYSTALLINE DIAMOND COMPACT (PDC) DRILL BIT BODY USING ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING / 3D PRINTING TECHNOLOGIES
Khurram Altaf

Last modified: 2015-10-15

Abstract


This study is about the application of Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies for the manufacturing of an improved design of Polycrystalline Diamond Compact drill bit body by using Thermojet three dimensional printing and investment casting to become a final product. Polycrystalline Diamond Compact (PDC) drill bit acts as one of the major component in the oil and gas discovery. Additive Manufacturing (AM) also referred as Three Dimensional printing (3DP) and Rapid Prototyping (RP) is one of the emerging manufacturing technologies. The aim of study is to investigate a quicker and effective PDC drill bit manufacturing process without compromising the mechanical aspects of the fabricated model. The conventional fabrication processes could be lengthy and cost intensive for a complex product. The advantages of AM include low material wastage, ability to fabricate a complex product and short lead time with high efficiency makes it attractive to those creative innovator.  With the rapidly developing technologies, the aspiration of manufacturing rate is keep rising and will be higher in future for sure. This situation make those traditional manufacturing methods harder to keep up with the industry driven demands. In order to counter the situation, AM is one of the tool between the manufacturing rate and high precision product. A computer aided design (CAD) drawing has been modified from the previous model and sectioned into several parts to ease the three dimensional printing process. Wax pattern was created using AM in separate sections to minimizing the support structure. Then the bit body was fabricated using investment casting. The end result was a PDC bit body fabricated with steel material.


Keywords


PDC Drill Bit Body; Additive Manufacturing; 3D Printing; Investment Casting.