SPE 93213

A Type of Advanced Mud-Hammer Applied to Oil Drilling

Z. Jian and J. Shang, China Oilfield Services Ltd.

Copyright 2005, Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc.

This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2005 Asia Pacific Oil & Gas Conference and
Exhibition held in Jakarta, Indonesia, 5 7 April 2005.
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE Program Committee following review of
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presented, have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to
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Abstract
A kind of percussion rotary drilling system applied to oil
drilling, which includes a mud-actuated hammer as a key
element. The overall goal of this system is to rise up the ROP
and to provide significant cost reduction and technical
advantage over current drilling practice particularly in deep,
medium-to-hard rock formations. This paper describes a new
type of efflux mud hammer, its structure principle and latest
experiment results in some detail.
Introduction
According to rock-breaking theories, the percussion rotary
drilling technique is one of the most effective ways to drill
hard formations. The research work starting in 1992, aims at
developing a type of efflux mud hammer applied to oil drilling
to rise up the ROP of hard formations. A set of mud hammer
prototype and its testing system is developed; a lot of
simulated experiments are made. The research of
improving the impact energy of hydro-efflux hammer
has made a break-through. The final impacting velocity
of hammer has reached 5.43m/s. The high-energy
hydraulic hammer has been designed. The designing
method and ca lculation formulas of efflux element are
established, the computer calculation program is
compiled and the computer-aided designing is fulfilled.
The series of hammers have been designed, and
experimented in the Sichuan, Qinghai, Xinjiang oilfield
in the west of China. The hammers lifetime, stability
has been improved. At present, this technique has been
gradually used in the oilfield in the west of China.
Description of Technology
The key element of this mud hammer is an efflux element,
which controls piston stroking upward and piston stroking
downward. Figure 1 illustrates the basic principle of this
hammer system. The high-pressure mud fluid from drill-string

inputs into jet nozzle and forms a truss of high-speed jet,

which can automatically attach to one side of efflux element.
If it attaches left side, the jet flows into the down chamber of
piston, and pushes piston move upward to its upper dead
center. At this moment, the piston abruptly stops, and the
water hammer is produced in the down chamber of the piston.
The water hammer wave feedbacks to the left control punch ,
pushes the jet to attach to the right side of the jet nozzle, jet
fluid inputs into the upper chamber of piston and pushes the
piston to move down and strikes the anvil. At this moment, the
piston abruptly stops moving, the water hammer is produced
in the upper chamber of the piston. The water hammer wave
feedbacks to the right control punch to push the jet to attach to
the left side of the jet nozzle, the next cycle begins. The piston
and hammer reciprocates just like this.
Features. There are no spring and valve in this kind of mud
hammer, so, it has long lifetime; The piston and hammer move
in an open system, so this type of mud hammer can be used in
deep well.
Experiments in Lab
Experiments in autoclave. The efflux mud hammer is
installed in the autoclave testing system (Fig.2). High pressure
is set up in the autoclave by using pump and valve. When the
pressure in the autoclave varies from 1.2MPa to 32MPa, the
hammer can be operated normally. The experimental results
demonstrate that the confining pressure have no influence on
the hammers performance. The testing results are as table 1.
Experiments on testing system. A set of mud hammer
prototype and its testing system (Fig. 3) is developed in1997.
The system can test the hammers frequency, impact energy
and upper pressure or down pressure of piston chamber, and
so on. A lot of experiments have been done with this system.
The experiment data and results are as followed Fig. 4, Fig. 5,
Fig. 6, Fig. 7, Fig. 8, and Fig. 9.
Experiment Conclusions.
(1) The testing results indicate that the pressure up and
down chamber of piston is varied periodically, and
pump pressure increases with the pump displacement
increasing.
(2) This data can direct the mud hammer field operation
and mathematic models establishment.
(3) On the basis of lots of experiments, the ways to

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SPE 93213

improve impact energy have been found; the final

impact velocity of hammer has reached 5.43m/s.
The high-energy hydraulic hammer has been
designed.
(4) This type of efflux hammer can adapt to the change
of load, automatically supplement fluid due to its
open system.
(5) The increasing of the piston rod diameter has a little bit
influence on the hammer impact energy and frequency,
but the lifetime of the chamber and efflux element can
be lengthened.
The Computer-Aided Softwares Design
On the basis of experiment data, water hammers equation,
Bernoulli equation and the pistons motion differential
equation, the math models have been set up, and the
computer-aided software has been completed. Fig.10 is the
program interface.

Table 1 Experiment Results Under High

Confining Pressure Conditions
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

Confining
Pressure
MPa
2.0
1.2
2.5
3.7
9.0
12.0
15.0
17.0
20.5
22.0
27.0
28.5
32.0
32.0
34.0

Pump
Pressure
MPa
5.0
5.8
7.0
14.8
14.0
16.0
20.0
21.0
25.0
26.0
31.0
31.5
36.0
35.0
38.5

Pressure
drop
MPa
3.0
4.6
4.5
11.1
5.0
4.0
5.0
4.0
4.5
3.5
4.0
3.0
4.0
3.0
4.0

Frequency
Hz
57
83

47
46

43.3

Experiment in oilfield
Mud hammers Specification:
OD (mm): 203
Hammer quality (kg) : 60
Piston strike: (mm): 20~120
Pump displacement (L/s): 20~45
Pump pressure (MPa): 10~30
Working pressure drop (MPa): 1~2
Frequency (Hz): 10.32
Impact energy (J): 200~370
Length (mm): 3112
The experiment was done in oilfield in2003. The results as
follow:
(1) The experiment drilling footage: 214.6m;
(2) Pure drilling time: 79.8h;
(3) Average ROP: 2.69 m/h.
(4) Compared with the traditional rotary drilling
methods, the average penetrating rate is raised by
41%. At the same time this technique can weaken
the drill collars vibration, decrease the deviation
of well.

Fig. 1 Schematic Diagram of Efflux Mud Hammer

Conclusions
(1) This new type of advanced mud hammer has simple
structure, and there are no easy damaged parts such as
spring, valve, and so on.
(2) The frequency and impact energy is adjustable easily.
Using this hammer under the proper frequency and
impact energy conditions, the drill strings vibration
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Prof. Kun Yin Jilin
University, China for his help with experiments.
Fig. 2 - High Pressure Autoclave Testing System

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SPE 93213

Fig. 7 - Impact Energy and Frequency vs. Piston Stroke

Fig. 3 - Photograph of Testing Hammer System

Fig. 8 - Impact Energy and Frequency vs. Hammer Quality

Fig. 4 - Upper Chamber and Down Chamber Pressure vs. Time

Fig. 9 - Impact Energy and Frequency vs. Piston Rod

Diameter
Fig. 5 - Pump Pressure vs. Pump Discharge Capacity

Fig. 6 - Energy and Frequency vs. Pump Discharge Capacity

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Fig. 10 - Program Interface