Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 171 (2018) 854–862

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/petrol

Imaging the formation process of cuttings: Characteristics of cuttings and T

mechanical specific energy in single PDC cutter tests
Zhen Chenga,b, Mao Shenga,b,∗, Gensheng Lia,b, Zhongwei Huanga,b, Xiaoguang Wua,b,
Zhaopeng Zhua,b, Jiawei Yanga,b
a
State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resources and Prospecting, (China University of Petroleum, Beijing), Beijing, 102249, China
b
Department of Oil and Gas Well Engineering, College of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum at Beijing, Beijing, 102249, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Polycrystalline Diamond Compact (PDC) bits account for most of the footage drilled in the oil field. Abundant
PDC bit information relating to cutter-rock interactions and rock breaking mechanism are provided by the cuttings and
Single cutter test Mechanical Specific Energy (MSE) in single cutter tests, which are crucial for insuring the longevity and rate of
Cuttings formation penetration (ROP) enhancement of PDC bits. In this paper, a series of linear cutting tests was conducted at
MSE
different depths of cut, back rake angles and cutting speeds on three kinds of rock. The formation of cuttings was
recorded frame by frame with a high-speed camera. Then, the cuttings were collected and divided into five
groups by sieving. Finally, the mass fraction change of cuttings in each group was compared with the MSE
variation. The results show that a PDC cutter does not move at a constant speed: relatively slower when crushing
and faster when chipping, and crushing dominates almost the entire cutting process. The mass fraction of
chunklike cuttings generated in chipping is increased with decreasing back rake angle, while increasing depth of
cut and cutting speed; and the mass fraction of powderlike cuttings generated in crushing shows an opposite
trend. Furthermore, because of the crystalloblastic texture and well-developed cleavages in calcite, far more
chunklike cuttings and totally different fracture surfaces are found when cutting marble, compared with sand-
stone and granite. Finally, a strong correlation between the mass fraction of cuttings and MSE is found. This
indicates that the mass fraction of cuttings could be deemed as a simple method to evaluate the efficiency of rock
breaking by PDC cutters. The results in this paper are expected to provide guidelines to the selection of drilling
practices and PDC bit design.

1. Introduction
Since the 1970s when the Polycrystalline Diamond Compact (PDC)
bit was firstly introduced in oil drilling (Warren and Sinor, 1994), the
footage drilled by PDC bits worldwide has exceeded that of tri-cone bits
by 2004 (Bruton et al., 2014) and accounted for 65% in 2010 (Bellin
et al., 2010). To enhance the rate of penetration (ROP) and longevity of
PDC bits, a large number of single cutter cutting tests were conducted
because of its directness and simplicity.
Single cutter tests were firstly conducted in the 1970s (Cheatham
and Daniels, 1979) and have been developed to be a practical tool to
gain insights to rock breaking mechanisms, optimization of operating
parameters and bit design (Zijsling, 1987). In a cutting test, cutting and
thrust forces were usually monitored by strain gauges, and the re-
lationship between forces and geometrical, operating parameters were
then studied (Akbari, 2014; Detournay and Defourny, 1992; Dougherty
et al., 2015; Glowka, 1989).
In addition to the forces, abundant information is also delivered to
operators and researchers by cuttings. Cuttings morphology, fracture
surface morphology, and subsurface damage were observed at both
microscopic and macroscopic scales by D.H. Zeuch. Zeuch concluded
that similar cuttings indicated the same breaking mechanism for dif-
ferent kinds of rocks and cutter geometries (Zeuch, 1985). Ersoy in-
vestigated the relation between some parameters and size of cuttings
drilled by three kinds of PDC core bits. He found that increasing re-
volutions per minute (RPM), weights on bit (WOB), wear rate and pins
or diamond size resulted in larger cuttings size (Ersoy and Waller,
1997). Rafatian found different cuttings morphology under different
confining pressure (Rafatian et al., 2010). Rahmani analyzed the cut-
tings at the macro-, micro-, and nanoscale, and he concluded that the

∗
Corresponding author. Department of Oil and Gas Well Engineering, College of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum at Beijing, Beijing, 102249,
China.
E-mail address: shengmao@cup.edu.cn (M. Sheng).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2018.07.083
Received 3 April 2018; Received in revised form 6 July 2018; Accepted 31 July 2018
Available online 12 August 2018
0920-4105/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Z. Cheng et al. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 171 (2018) 854–862

morphology and size of cuttings ribbons are influenced by the type of

drilling mud, rate of penetration (ROP) intervals, and mineral compo-
sition (Rahmani et al., 2015). Che studied the cuttings formation pro-
cess by direct observation with a high-speed camera and concluded that
the back rake angle and cutting speed had little effect on the formation
of cuttings when compared to the depth of cut and lithologies (Che
et al., 2016). The process of cuttings formation was also reproduced by
finite element method analyses (Che et al., 2014; Jaime et al., 2015;
Menezes et al., 2014).
Moreover, Mechanical Specific Energy (MSE) is another important
parameter in cutting tests. Since the concept of MSE was firstly in-
troduced in drilling engineering by R. Simon (1963) and R. Teale
(1965) in the 1960s, it has been developed to be a widely accepted
indicator of rock breaking efficiency: larger MSE usually means the
waste of energy and an inappropriate rock breaking method. Pessier
conducted full scale simulations and validated the hypothesis that the
mechanical efficiency, which was defined as the ratio of the UCS to the Fig. 1. Schematic of the imaging of a linear rock cutting test.
MSE (uniaxial compressive strength, which was deemed as the
minimum MSE of a rock), increases with ROP, namely the depth of cut sampling rate from 10 to 10 k Frames per Second (fps). A commonly
(Pessier and Fear, 1992). Rafatian and Akbari simplified the calculation used oilfield PDC cutter (size of Φ19 × 13 mm) was chosen for this test.
of MSE in a single cuter test and found that the increase of MSE is more In this test, parameters such as depth of cut, back rake angle, cutting
dramatic for lower confining pressure (including the pressures acting on speed and rock type are studied, and each test was repeated at least 3
the sides and top of the rock sample), and rock compressive strength is times to reduce the experimental error. The parameter design for these
much smaller than MSE under confining pressure (Akbari and Miska, linear cutting tests is shown in Table 1.
2013; Rafatian et al., 2010). Strong relationships between MSE and
some rock properties (like Shore scleroscope hardness and density)
2.2. Materials
were determined by fitting data from a great number of experiments
(Tiryaki and Dikmen, 2006). The effects of parameters like the depth of
Three types of isotropic rocks with no obvious cracks and damage
cut, the back rake angle and the cutting speed on MSE have been stu-
were chosen for these experiments: granite, sandstone, and marble (see
died subsequently (Coudyzer and Richard, 2005; Majidi et al., 2011;
Fig. 2). They were machined into 150 × 100 × 30 mm blocks, the
Rajabov et al., 2012). New methods to evaluate rock breaking efficiency
surface roughness and parallelism were strictly controlled.
was also proposed (Hareland et al., 2009).
The physical and mechanical properties of the rocks are shown in
Although the theory proposed by Rittinger in 1867 that a larger
Table 2.
specific surface leads to a larger MSE is widely accepted by researchers,
The mineral compositions of these three rocks were determined by
the calculation of the specific surface restricts its application and stu-
XRD (X-ray diffraction) and are shown in Table 3.
dies on the relationship between cuttings and MSE are still limited.
Akbari measured the cuttings size by their settling rate in a colloidal
solution and found that MSE decreases with increasing minimum cut- 3. Results and discussion
tings size while no obvious relation was found between MSE and the
maximum cuttings size (Akbari et al., 2014). 3.1. The formation process of cuttings
The objective of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the
mechanisms of the cuttings formation and their mass fraction change The entire cuttings formation process are visualized and recorded
with different parameters, and also the relation between cuttings mass with a high-speed camera. The sampling rate of the camera was set at
fraction and MSE. Therefore, a series of cutting tests was conducted: 700fps to have a balance between recording time and image resolution.
Cuttings formation was recorded with a high-speed camera. The cut- An overall cutting process by a single cutter is generally divided into
tings were collected and carefully analyzed. Finally, MSE for each test two parts: crushing and chipping (Goodrich, 1956). Crushing is the
was determined and the variation of MSE and cuttings mass fraction process in which rock in front of the cutter is compressed to powder to
was assessed. The results of this paper are expected to provide guide- form a crushed zoom. In addition, chipping is the process where cracks
lines for PDC bit design and drilling practices optimization. propagate and finally reach to the free surface; chunklike cuttings are
consequently formed. A typical cutting process (lasting for about
2. Experimental setup and materials 0.4186s) is chosen and shown in Fig. 3. In a series of successive pictures
of a linear cutting test, it could be directly observed that although the
2.1. Experimental setup cutting speed was set a constant (300 mm/min) before tests, the PDC
cutter moves at different speeds in different periods.
Generally, the rock cutting tests are divided into three categories
Table 1
based on the relative motions between the rock and cutter: linear cut-
The parameter design in linear cutting test.
ting, rotational cutting and hybrid cutting. While the linear cutting tests
is the most convenient and straightforward method to study the rock- Test Depth of cut Back rake Cutting speed Type of rock
cutter interactions (Che et al., 2016). group mm angle° mm/min

In this study, the linear cutting tests were conducted on a modified 1 0.3, 0.6, 0.9, 20 300 Granite
milling machine, which could precisely control the depth of cut (ac- 1.2, 1.5
curacy of 0.01 mm) and cutting speed (100–1200 mm/min), while the 2 0.9 10, 20, 30 300 Granite
back rake angle was changed by choosing different PDC cutter holders. 3 0.9 20 300, 600, 900, Granite
1200
The normal and cutting forces were monitored by a vertical and hor-
4 0.9 20 300 Granite, sandstone,
izontal strain gauge, respectively. Also, as shown in Fig. 1, the cuttings marble
formation process was recorded by a high-speed camera, with a

855
Z. Cheng et al.
Fig. 2. Rock samples: (a) Granite (b) Sandstone (c) Marble.
The indication that crushing is occurring is that the PDC cutter
slows down suddenly, and obvious movement cannot subsequently be
identified frame by frame. At t = 0s, the PDC cutter just has finished its
previous cutting process, and the cuttings produced in the previous
cutting cycle can be clearly observed. From this moment, the PDC cutter
starts its crushing by slowly compacting and compressing the rock in
front of it. During crushing, chunklike cuttings generated in the pre-
vious chipping process can be observed flying far away, as shown in
Fig. 3 at t = 0.01741s. The PDC cutter keeps moving forward at a re-
latively lower speed until t = 04129s; this juncture separates the pro-
cess of crushing and chipping. In other words, chipping starts here. At
t = 0.4143s, the PDC cutter speeds up suddenly and starts to move at a
visible speed; the accumulated energy in the rock by crushing is then
released: the crushed powder erupts from in front of and behind the
PDC cutter. From t = 0.4143s to t = 0.4186s, the PDC cutter continues
its visible movement. Large cuttings are formed and fly away (which
can be more clearly seen at t = 0.4543s). However, after t = 0.4186s,
obvious movement cannot be detected again. This means that relatively
fast movement in this cutting process lasts only about 0.00571s, and the
crushing process of the next cutting cycle starts. What can be quantified
in this cutting process is that although it is more impressive than
crushing, the chipping process lasts only 0.00571s, accounting for
about 1.26% of the entire cutting process.
Although four parameters were studied in these tests, only the depth
of cut and the rock type affect the process of cuttings formation,
visually.
At a cutting depth of 0.3 mm, all cuttings come out as fine powder,
almost no volumetric breakage is observed, and the PDC cutter moves
successively. For deeper indentation, at a cutting depth of 0.6 mm,
volumetric breakage starts to appear. As a result, the PDC cutter starts
to vibrate when these larger cuttings are formed. As the depth of cut
increases to 1.5 mm, larger cuttings are observed more frequently, and
the PDC cutter vibrates even more violently. It seems that there is a
critical depth of cut between 0.3 mm and 0.6 mm. This is also con-
tended by He (He and Xu, 2015). There will be no significant volu-
metric breakage when the depth of cut is smaller than the critical depth,
and rocks are broken by a crushing failure mode. However, volumetric
breakage by chipping will appear when cutting at a greater depth.
The process of cuttings formation is totally different for different
rocks (see Fig. 5). As discussed above, when cutting granite, the PDC
cutter moves slowly and smoothly most of the time, but violently vi-
brates briefly when chipping. However, when cutting marble, vibration
occurs more frequently, though not too violently. Volumetric breakage,
Table 2
Basic physical and mechanical properties of experimental rocks.
Type of rock Density g/cm3 Young's Modulus GPa Poison's ratio 1
Granite 2.62 35.46 0.28
Sandstone 2.47 17.46 0.32
Marble 2.70 47.71 0.15
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 171 (2018) 854–862
or chipping, could be observed throughout the cutting process. When
cutting sandstone, the PDC cutter is in the most smooth and even suc-
cessive movement, almost no violent vibration occurs. Crushed powder
is piled high in front of the cutter, and then expelled by occasional but
slight vibration.
3.2. The variation of cuttings mass fraction
Although the formation process of cuttings was observed directly
with the high speed camera, to further analyze the effects of experi-
mental parameters on cuttings formation, quantitative investigation is
needed. The cuttings are collected after each test and then sieved with
different mesh size screens: 10mesh (2.54 mm), 20mesh (1.27 mm),
40mesh (0.635 mm) and 80mesh (0.3175 mm). Five size groups of
cuttings are divided from large to small: 0/10mesh, 10/20mesh, 20/
40mesh, 40/80mesh and 80/+∞mesh. The cuttings from each group
were weighed and the mass fraction of each group is expressed as:
Mi
Mass Fraction = × 100%
∑ Mi (1)
where:Mi: Mass of each size group (see Fig. 5).
After being sieved, as shown in Fig. 6, cuttings in the group of 40/
80mesh and 80/+∞mesh are fine powder, while the group of 0/
10mesh and 10/20mesh are obvious chunklike particulates, and cut-
tings in the group of 20/40mesh are intermediate ones, larger than
powder but far smaller than volumetrically broken particles.
In Fig. 7 (a), with an increase in the cutting depth from 0.3 mm to
1.5 mm, the total mass fraction of powder, that is, cuttings in the size
groups of 40/80mesh and 80/+∞mesh, decreases by about 55%, al-
most linearly. On the contrary, the mass fraction of chunklike cuttings
increases. In the size group of 0/10mesh, mass fraction increases ex-
ponentially from 0 to 36.6%. In the size group of 10/20mesh, although
the mass fraction flattens out and even decreases a little when the depth
of cut increases from 0.9 to 1.5 mm, it increases about 20% overall.
When compared to powderlike and chunklike cuttings, the mass frac-
tion of intermediate-sized cuttings shows relatively smaller change. It
increases first and then decreases, varies within 10%. The variation of
the cuttings mass fraction is consistent with the images recorded by the
high-speed camera in Fig. 4: crushing dominates the cutting process and
generates powderlike cuttings at shallow depths of cut, while chipping
starts to develop chunklike cuttings as the depth of cut increases. As a
results, more chunklike cuttings are formed at larger cutting depth.
There is no exact conclusion about whether cutting speed affects the
cutting process or not. Some studies had found that the cutting speed
had little influence on the cutting force (Che et al., 2016; Gray et al.,
Cohesive strength MPa internal friction angle° UCS MPa Porosity/% Permeability/mD
37.88 53.18 164.2 2.58 0.0045
24.33 47.88 95.4 8.96 0.1596
28.65 53.46 114.8 6.76 0.1051
856
Z. Cheng et al.
Table 3
Mineral composition of experimental rocks (by weight).
Mineral composition
Type of Rock Quartz Potash Feldspar Plagioclase Calcite
Granite 17.9 9.0 57.0 / 4.4
Sandstone 92.9 0.5 / /
Marble / / / 96.0
I/S: illite-montmorillonite mixed layer; I: illite; C: chlorite.
The bulk of clay minerals concentrations in marble was less than 5%, traces of illite and chlorite were found.
1962; Majidi et al., 2011), while others believed that a greater cutting
speed leads to a larger cutting force (Jain et al., 2011; Kolle, 1996;
Yaşar et al., 2011). When it comes to the effects on cuttings, Ersoy
believed that the RPM (namely, the cutting speed in a linear cutting
test) had significant influence on the size of cuttings with core bits:
greater RPM led to smaller cuttings (Ersoy and Waller, 1997). While
Gray found this influence insignificant (Gray et al., 1962). However, in
this study, cutting speed does show some influence on the mass fraction
of cuttings as Ersoy contended. As shown in Fig. 7 (b), as the cutting
speed increases, the total mass fraction of fine powder decreases about
5%. Conversely, although the cuttings larger than 10mesh slightly de-
creases when the cutting speed increases from 900 to 1200 mm/min,
the total chunklike cuttings increases by about 8% overall. This in-
dicates that cutting speed affects the cuttings mass fraction by forming
relatively more larger cuttings.
As discussed by previous researchers and also indicated above,
chunklike cuttings are generated in the chipping process. Explaining the
mass fraction change of chunklike cuttings with the depth of cut and
cutting speed is necessary. At the instant that chipping starts, input
work is used in crack propagation. When the cracks extend to the free
surface, chunklike chips are formed. The input work by PDC cutter is
expressed as below:
W = F ⋅v⋅t (2)
where:W: input work by a PDC cutter (J); F: cutting force (N); v: cutting
speed (m/s); t: time (s).
In equation. 2, when the cutting speed is a constant, the cutting
force is significantly increased with increasing depth of cut (Akbari
et al., 2012; Che et al., 2016). As a result, larger depth of cut brings
about larger input work to chipping in an equal period of time. That is,
larger input work ensures longer propagation of cracks, and larger
cuttings are formed. Similarly, if the cutting force is constant or
Fig. 3. A whole process of chip formation (Granite, depth of cut = 1.5 mm, back rake angle = 20°, cutting speed: 300 mm/min).
857
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 171 (2018) 854–862
Clay Minerals
Hornblende Dolomite Clay Minerals I/S I C
2.2 9.5 72.0 23.0 5.0
/ / 6.6 97.0 2.0 1
/ / 4 / / /
increased with increasing cutting speed, as a result of greater cutting
speed, more input work for chipping helps to lengthen the cracks, and
larger cuttings are formed.
Generally, in Fig. 7 (b) and (c), compared with the depth of cut, it is
obvious that the variation of cutting speed and back rake angle has
much less influence on the mass fraction change of the cuttings.
When cutting at different back rake angles, the total mass fraction of
fine powder increases about 16% from angles of 10°–30°. The total
chunklike cuttings shows an opposite trend: decreasing about 12%. At
the same time, the mass fraction of intermediate-sized chips still
changes slightly, by about 4%.
As shown in Fig. 8, when a fixed cutting force and thrust force are
exerted on the rock, and the resultant force is defined as FR. Then the
projection of FR in two directions, perpendicular and parallel to the
cutter-rock interaction face, are the normal force and shear force, re-
spectively. α is the back rake angle and ψ is the force inclination. As
seen in the figure, which is also proved by laboratory experiments
(Coudyzer and Richard, 2005), increasing back rake angle leads to a
decrease of the force inclination. Therefore, the shear force decreases
and the normal force increases. Moreover, in Che's simulation using the
LS-DYNA platform, chunklike cuttings are formed due to shearing (Che
et al., 2014). Consequently, when cutting at a greater back rake angle,
with a larger normal force and smaller shear force, instead of being
sheared to form larger cuttings, rock in front of the cutter is fragmented
into smaller cuttings mostly by compression. In addition, cuttings that
could not be removed will be reground. Therefore constant compression
leads to more powderlike cuttings. Moreover, it is general knowledge
that the compressive strength of a rock is larger (about 10 times larger
generally) than its shear strength. This indicates that rocks are far more
difficult to break by compressing when compared to shearing. Hence
larger normal force is needed when cutting at a larger back rake angle
and finer cuttings are generated.
Z. Cheng et al.
Fig. 5. Evolution of cutting process with the type of rock.
(Depth of cut = 0.9 mm, back rake angle = 20°, cutting speed: 300 mm/min)
Fig. 4. Evolution of cutting process with the depth of cut (Granite, back rake angle = 20°, cutting speed: 300 mm/min).
Fig. 6. Cuttings after being sieved.
Finally, as shown in Fig. 7 (d), the mass fraction of each size group
of sandstone is similar to that of granite: the percentage of total powder
when cutting granite is 52.2%, and 47.8% when cutting sandstone; the
percentage of total chunklike cuttings when cutting granite is 22.5%,
and 18.4% when cutting sandstone. However, there are no cuttings
larger than 10mesh when cutting sandstone, it could be explained by
the difference of the UCS between sandstone and granite as Che hy-
pothesized (Che et al., 2016): in the process of crushing, the rock in
front of the PDC cutter is compressed, and it is believed that smaller
UCS usually leads to relatively poor resistance when being compressed.
Meanwhile, as discussed in the literature and presented in Fig. 3, in the
relatively slow movement, crushing is the not only the process for the
PDC cutter to compress and deform the rock in front of the cutter: in the
deformation of the rock being compressed, energy is also accumulated
for the initiation and propagation of cracks in chipping. However, be-
cause of relatively lower UCS, the PDC cutter almost successively
breaks the sandstone by easily compressed it to powder without ob-
vious deceleration or pause. Consequently, almost all of the work input
by PDC cutter is invested to successive and easy production of powder,
while little is left for energy accumulation for the formation of chunlike
cuttings larger than 10mesh in chipping.
However, if the cuttings mass fraction of sandstone could be con-
sidered as similar, the cuttings mass fraction when cutting marble is
totally different from these two. Just as recorded with the high-speed
camera (in Fig. 7), almost constant chipping is observed in the cutting
858
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 171 (2018) 854–862
process, which is consistent to the mass fraction of cuttings: total
chunklike cuttings take more than 70% of all cuttings. Furthermore, the
total mass of cuttings when cutting marble is nearly 30% more than
sandstone and granite because chipping also broke the rock near the
cutting trajectory, not only in it (as shown in Fig. 9).
In addition to the difference of cuttings mass fraction, as shown in
Fig. 10, the fracture surface of marble is far more smooth than sand-
stone and granite according to the 3D surface topography.
There are three main factors which result in totally different cut-
tings mass fraction between marble and the other two lithologies: when
cutting marble, 1) less powderlike cuttings are generated, 2) more
chunklike cuttings are generated, 3) the size of chunklike cuttings
generated when cutting marble are even larger.
To explain the totally different mass fraction and fracture surface
roughness of the cuttings between marble and the other two, the dif-
ference in texture and mineral are the keys. Marble is one of the me-
tamorphic rocks which is transformed from limestone through contact
thermal metamorphism. Under high temperature of 300–800 °C, mi-
nerals recrystallized and recombined each other even more closely, and
a stronger texture called crystalloblastic texture was formed, which
explains the difference in powderlike cuttings when cutting marble and
the other two: although has similar UCS to sandstone, when being
broken to small cuttings, the strong bonding strength reduces them to
be further regrinded to powder by PDC cutter. Furthermore, marble is
predominantly composed of calcite (96.0%) according to Table 2, in
Z. Cheng et al.
Fig. 7. Evolution of mass fraction of cuttings in different size with (a) depth of cut, (b) cutting speed, (c) back rake angle, (d) type of rock.
Fig. 8. The schematic of cutting at different back rake angles.
Fig. 9. Cutting trajectory of (a) granite, (b) sandstone, (c) marble (the frag-
mentation edges are marked in red). (For interpretation of the references to
colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this
article.)
859
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 171 (2018) 854–862
which three groups of cleavages are very well-developed (perfect
cleavages) (Fig. 11). However, quartz (92.9%) and plagioclase (57.0%),
the major minerals in sandstone and granite, has no cleavages and only
two groups of cleavage, respectively.
When being compressed by a PDC cutter, on one hand, the strong
bonding strength reduces the energy investment to cuttings regrinding,
therefore more energy is saved for initiation and propagation of cracks.
On the other hand, because of the existence of these cleavages, the
initiation pressure and energy of cracks are also decreased, therefore,
cracks are easier to initiate which results in more chipping.
Furthermore, cracks can grow longer and farther even to the side of the
cutting trajectory (Fig. 9) and larger chunklike cuttings are formed. As
shown in Fig. 11, cleavages are naturally and orderly arranged in cer-
tain directions in a mineral grain like rhombohedral cleavage in calcite,
thus the grains such as calcite in marble on the fracture surface tend to
break in the same direction, while quartz grains in sandstone break
randomly and disorderly. What is more, marble has the smallest and
relatively uniform grain size among the three lithologies: as shown in
Fig. 12, under the observation by SEM (scanning electron microscope),
the mineral grain size of marble seems much smaller (4.4–13.3 μm) and
more uniform than sandstones (7.55–31.2 μm) and granite
(3.66–32.9 μm). As a reslut of the orderly arranged cleavages, small and
uniform grain size, marble has far more smooth fracture surface than
the other two.
In conclusion, UCS is not the only factor influences the size of cut-
tings, internal structure in different rocks also plays important role in
the formation of cuttings.
Z. Cheng et al. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 171 (2018) 854–862

Fig. 10. The fracture surface of (a) granite, (b) sandstone, (c) marble.

Fig. 11. Three groups of perfect cleavage planes in calcite.

Fig. 12. SEM images of (a) granite, (b) sandstone, (c) marble. ( × 1500times).

is a constant in tests. The input work by the cutter is expressed as:

t t
Input Work = ∫ Fds = ∑ Fv
N
0 0 (3)

In some publications, the volume of rock broken V is calculated

based on some geometric parameters such as the depth of cut and the
back rake angle (Majidi et al., 2011; Rafatian et al., 2010). This method
takes only the cleared rock in the cutting trajectory into consideration.
However, as discussed in section 3.2, in a real test, considering the
marble for example, not only the rocks in the cutting trajectory, but also
some rocks on the sides of the cutting trajectory were broken. In order
to calculate the volume of rock broken V more accurately, in this study,
it is expressed as the ratio of the mass to the density of the cuttings, the
porosity is also taken into calculation:
Fig. 13. Example of the recorded cutting force.
M
V=
ρ (1 − ϕ) (4)
3.3. The relationship between cuttings mass fraction and MSE
Therefore, MSE is expressed as:
In this study, as shown in Fig. 13, the cutting force was recorded by
t
the strain gauge at a sampling rate of 500 times per second. ρ (1 − ϕ) ∑0 Fv
MSE =
The input work due to the thrust force is zero since the depth of cut MN (5)

860
Z. Cheng et al.
Fig. 14. Evolution of MSE with (a) depth of cut, (b) cutting speed, (c) back rake angle, (d) type of rock.
Where:ρ and ϕ are the density and the porosity of the rock, N is the
sampling rate.
As shown in Fig. 11 (a)∼(c), MSE decreases with increasing depth
of cut and cutting speed, and increases with increasing back rake angle.
Rajabov and Majidi proposed a hypothesis that increasing depth of cut
leads to a slight increase of the cutting force, while the area of cut
increases many times, MSE, the ratio of the cutting force and the area of
cut, decreases as a result (Majidi et al., 2011; Rajabov et al., 2012).
Conversely, compared to the increase of the area of cut, a greater in-
crease of cutting force is obtained due to the increase of the back rake
angle. Therefore, the MSE increases. In a further study, Majidi believed
that larger cutting speed helps to clear the fragmented cuttings from in
front of the cutter. This impedes breaking the rock, and the MSE de-
creases consequently (Majidi et al., 2011).
Moreover, it is noteworthy that MSE shows the same trend with the
powderlike cuttings mass fraction when cutting granite: decreases with
increasing depth of cut and cutting speed, increases with increasing
back rake angle. While MSE and chunklike cuttings mass fraction shows
opposite trend with these parameters. For a long time, the theory that
the energy consumption is proportional to the specific surface is widely
accepted. In the cutting process, the specific surface of the powderlike
cuttings is far larger than for the chunklike fragments: Linqvist pro-
posed that almost all of the energy is spent in the formation of the
crushed zone in a cutting process (Lindqvist, 1982) and Mishnaevsky Jr.
summarized that more than 90% of energy is used in crushing
(Mishnaevsky, 1995), Che and Entacher also believed that crushing
needs more energy than chipping does because of totally different
failure modes of rock under these two processes (Che et al., 2016;
Entacher et al., 2015). Furthermore, in the cutting process depicted in
Fig. 3, more than 90% of the time is invested to crushing. This is an
indirect proof of the different energy consumption between crushing
and chipping. It is not a coincidence that there is a strong correlation
861
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 171 (2018) 854–862
between MSE and cuttings mass fraction.
As depicted and discussed, with a greater depth of cut and cutting
speed, larger cuttings are generated by chipping. As a result, when
breaking rocks of equal volume, energy is saved in the cutting process
involves more chipping and less crushing, and MSE decreases conse-
quently. And it just reverses when it comes to the increase of back rake
angle: MSE increases because more crushed powder is formed by
crushing. Meanwhile, the mass fraction of cuttings is a more calculable
and available parameter when compared with the specific surface, and
it might be used in future studies in the evaluation of rock breaking
efficiency.
The MSE needed when cutting different rocks is shown in Fig. 14(d).
It is widely recognized that larger UCS means larger MSE needed to
break it (Tiryaki and Dikmen, 2006), as shown by cutting granite and
sandstone in this study: 1.5 times more MSE is needed to cut the granite
than the sandstone because of their different UCS values. However,
with even larger UCS, the MSE needed to break the marble is 23% less
than for the sandstone. However, with even larger UCS, the MSE needed
to break the marble is 23% less than for the sandstone. This discrepancy
can also be explained by the different cuttings mass fraction between
these two rocks: although higher UCS increases the difficulty to break
the marble, however, because of its unique texture and mineral dis-
cussed in section 3.2, much more chunklike cuttings are generated
when cutting marble, and energy is saved in the formation of chunklike
cuttings by chipping. As a result, the MSE when cutting marble is lower
than that when cutting sandstone.
The work in this paper was all performed at atmospheric conditions,
and further study under confining pressure is expected to be done
subsequently.
Z. Cheng et al.
4. Conclusions
A series of linear cutting tests was conducted to study the effects of
some parameters on the characteristics of cuttings and MSE. Imaging
cuttings formation with a high-speed camera indicates that the PDC
cutter in a cutting process is not in a state of uniform motion and
crushing dominates this process when compared with chipping.
Chipping gradually accounts for more cuttings with an increase of
depth of cut and cutting speed. The mass fraction of chunklike cuttings
increases as a result of more input work. However, with increasing back
rake angle, normal force exerted on the rock becomes larger while the
shear force becomes smaller. The result is that the rock in front of the
cutter is broken by compression more and fragmented to smaller cut-
tings. Therefore, more powderlike cuttings are generated at larger back
rake angles. Moreover, because of its well-developed cleavage and
crystalloblastic texture, in which the minerals are recrystallized and
recombined to be more uniform and compact, marble has a totally
different roughness of fracture surface and mass fraction of cuttings
when compared with the sandstone and granite. Finally, after the de-
termination of MSE in each test, the mass fraction of cuttings and MSE
are related and it could be concluded that the higher the powderlike
cuttings mass fraction is, the larger the MSE needed to break the rock in
a cutting process.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of
China (No. 51490652 and No. U1562212) and Scientific Research
Foundation of China University of Petroleum (2462014YJRC048).
References
Akbari, B., 2014. PDC cutter-rock Interaction - Experiments and Modeling. Dissertations
& Theses Thesis. The University of Tulsa, Ann Arbor, pp. 202.
Akbari, B., Miska, S., 2013. Effect of rock pore pressure on mechanical specific energy of
rock cutting using single PDC cutter. In: US Rock Mechanics/Geomechanics
Symposium San Francisco, CA, USA.
Akbari, B., Miska, S., Yu, M., Ozbayoglu, E., 2014. Relation between the mechanical
specific energy, cuttings morphology, and PDC cutter geometry. In: International
Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering. Asme International
Conference on Ocean, San Francisco, California, USA.
Akbari, B., Miska, S.Z., Yu, M., Rahmani, R., 2012. The effects of size, chamfer geometry,
and back rake angle on frictional response of PDC cutters. In: IADC/SPE Drilling
Conference and Exhibition, USA.
Bellin, F., Dourfaye, A., King, W., Thigpen, M., 2010. The current state of PDC bit tech-
nology. World Oil 231 (7), 53–58.
Bruton, G., et al., 2014. PDC bit technology for the 21st century. Oilfield Rev. 26 (2),
48–57.
Che, D., Han, P., Peng, B., Ehmann, K.F., 2014. Finite element study on chip formation
and force response in two-dimensional orthogonal cutting of rock. In: International
Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference ASME, Detroit, Michigan, USA.
Che, D., Zhang, W., Ehmann, K., 2016. chip formation and force responses in linear rock
cutting: an experimental study. J. Manuf. Sci. Eng. 139 (1).
Cheatham, J.B., Daniels, W.H., 1979. Study of factors influencing the drillability of shales
- single-cutter experiments with stratapax drill blanks. J. Energy Resour. Technol.
101.
Coudyzer, C., Richard, T., 2005. Influence of the back and side rake angles in rock cutting.
862
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 171 (2018) 854–862
In: AADE National Technical Conference and Exhibition.
Detournay, E., Defourny, P., 1992. A phenomenological model for the drilling action of
drag bits. Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci. Geomech. Abstr. 29 (1), 13–23.
Dougherty, P.S.M., Mpagazehe, J., Shelton, J., Iii, C.F.H., 2015. Elucidating PDC rock
cutting behavior in dry and aqueous conditions using tribometry. J. Petrol. Sci. Eng.
133, 529–542.
Entacher, M., Schuller, E., Galler, R., 2015. Rock failure and crack propagation beneath
disc cutters. Rock Mech. Rock Eng. 48 (4), 1559–1572.
Ersoy, A., Waller, M.D., 1997. Drilling detritus and the operating parameters of thermally
stable PDC core bits. Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci. 34 (7), 1109–1123.
Glowka, D.A., 1989. Use of single-cutter data in the analysis of PDC bit designs: part 1 —
development of a PDC cutting force model. Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci. Geomech.
Abstr. 27 (2) A98-A98.
Goodrich, R., 1956. High pressure rotary drilling machines. Bull. (Arch. Am. Art) 94.
Gray, K.E., Armstrong, F., Gatlin, C., 1962. Two-dimensional study of rock breakage in
drag-bit drilling at atmospheric pressure. J. Petrol. Technol. 14 (1), 93–98.
Hareland, G., et al., 2009. Cutting efficiency of a single PDC cutter on hard rock. J. Can.
Petrol. Technol. 48 (6), 60–65.
He, X., Xu, C., 2015. Discrete element modelling of rock cutting: from ductile to brittle
transition. Int. J. Numer. Anal. Meth. GeoMech. 39 (12), 1331–1351.
Jaime, M.C., Zhou, Y., Lin, J.S., Gamwo, I.K., 2015. Finite element modeling of rock
cutting and its fragmentation process. Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci. 80 (4), 137–146.
Jain, J.R., Ledgerwood, L.W., Hoffmann, O.J.-M., Schwefe, T., Fuselier, D.M., 2011.
Mitigation of torsional stick-slip vibrations in oil well drilling through PDC bit design:
putting theories to the test. In: SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition.
Society of Petroleum Engineers, Denver, Colorado, USA.
Kolle, J.J., 1996. The effects of pressure and rotary speed on the drag bit drilling strength
of deep formations. In: SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition.
Lindqvist, P.-A., 1982. Rock Fragmentation by Indentation and Disc Cutting : Some
Theoretical and Experimental Studies. Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, pp. 15.
Majidi, R., Miska, S.Z., Tammineni, S., 2011. PDC single Cutter: the Effects of Depth of
Cut and RPM under Simulated Borehole Conditions.
Menezes, P.L., Lovell, M.R., Avdeev, I.V., Iii, C.F.H., 2014. Studies on the formation of
discontinuous rock fragments during cutting operation. Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci.
71, 131–142.
Mishnaevsky Jr., L.L., 1995. Physical mechanisms of hard rock fragmentation under
mechanical loading: a review. Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci. Geomech. Abstr. 32 (8),
763–766.
Pessier, R.C., Fear, M.J., 1992. Quantifying common drilling problems with mechanical
specific energy and a bit-specific coefficient of sliding friction. In: SPE Annual
Technical Conference and Exhibition. Society of Petroleum Engineers.
Rafatian, N., et al., 2010. Experimental study of MSE of a single PDC cutter interacting
with rock under simulated pressurized conditions. SPE Drill. Complet. 25 (1), 10–18.
Rahmani, R., Ferrell, R.E., Smith, J.R., 2015. Multiscale Imaging of Fixed-cutter-drill-bit-
generated Shale Cuttings. Spe Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering.
Rajabov, V., Miska, S.Z., Mortimer, L., Yu, M., Ozbayoglu, M.E., 2012. The effects of back
rake and side rake angles on mechanical specific energy of single PDC cutters with
selected rocks at varying depth of cuts and confining pressures. In: IADC/SPE Drilling
Conference and Exhibition. Society of Petroleum Engineers, San Diego.
Simon, R., 1963. Energy balance in rock drilling. Soc. Petrol. Eng. J. 3 (4), 298–306.
Teale, R., 1965. The concept of specific energy in rock drilling. Int. J. Rock Mech. Min.
Sci. Geomech. Abstr. 2 (1), 57–73.
Tiryaki, B., Dikmen, A.C., 2006. Effects of rock properties on specific cutting energy in
linear cutting of sandstones by picks. Rock Mech. Rock Eng. 39 (2), 89–120.
Warren, T.M., Sinor, L.A., 1994. PDC bits: what's needed to meet tomorrow's challenge.
In: University of Tulsa Centennial Petroleum Engineering Symposium. Society of
Petroleum Engineers, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Yaşar, E., Ranjith, P.G., Viete, D.R., 2011. An experimental investigation into the drilling
and physico-mechanical properties of a rock-like brittle material. J. Petrol. Sci. Eng.
76 (3–4), 185–193.
Zeuch, D.H., 1985. Rock breakage mechanisms with a PDC cutter. In: SPE Annual
Technical Conference and Exhibition. Society of Petroleum Engineers, Las Vegas,
Nevada.
Zijsling, D.H., 1987. Single Cutter Testing - a Key for PDC Bit Development. Society of
Petroleum Engineers, Richardson Tx.