Journal Pre-proof

Shale bedding planes control rock removal behaviors of PDC cutter: Single cutter
experiment

Mao Sheng, Zhen Cheng, Shuyang Gao, Huaizhong Shi, Yanlong Zhang

PII: S0920-4105(19)31061-7
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2019.106640
Reference: PETROL 106640

To appear in: Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering

Received Date: 12 June 2019

Revised Date: 19 September 2019
Accepted Date: 31 October 2019

Please cite this article as: Sheng, M., Cheng, Z., Gao, S., Shi, H., Zhang, Y., Shale bedding planes
control rock removal behaviors of PDC cutter: Single cutter experiment, Journal of Petroleum Science
and Engineering (2019), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2019.106640.

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 1 Shale bedding planes control rock removal behaviors of PDC cutter: single

2 cutter experiment

3 Mao Shenga,b*, Zhen Chenga,b, Shuyang Gaoc, Huaizhong Shia,b, Yanlong Zhangd

4 a. State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resources and Prospecting, (China University of

5 Petroleum-Beijing), Beijing 102249, P.R. China

6 b. College of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum-Beijing, 102249, P.R. China

7 c. Sinopec Research Institute of Petroleum Engineering, Beijing, 10010, P.R. China

8 d. CNPC Engineering Technology R&D Company Limited, Beijing, 102200, China

10 * Correspondence to: Mao Sheng, E-mail: shengmao@cup.edu.cn

11

12
13 The highlight of this work can be presented as:

14 1) A parabolic correlation was observed between cutting force and bedding inclination.

15 2) Shear cracking along the weak bedding planes promotes chipping.

16 3) Bedding inclination controls the rock removal behaviors from crushing-dominate to

17 chipping-dominate.

18

1
19 Abstract

20 Shale bedding planes arise with the complexity of rock removal by the PDC cutters. A series of single

21 cutter experiments were conducted to understand the effects of bedding planes of shale on chip

22 formation behaviors. Six bedding inclinations were taken into account by recording the variation of

23 cutting force, cutting size, topography of debris, and high-speed images. Results demonstrate that the

24 average cutting force highly correlates with bedding inclination where a parabolic relation is observed.

25 The maximum value of cutting force is presented while perpendicular cutting to the bedding plane.

26 Crushing and chipping are approved to be two mechanisms of rock removal of the laminated shale.

27 Particularly, the bedding plane controls the chip formation behaviors. While the cutting force is

28 perpendicular to shale bedding, the crushing dominates the rock removal process in which more powder

29 debris are created. While the cutting force is parallel to shale bedding, the chipping dominates the rock

30 removal and more chunk-like cuttings are generated. Shear cracking along the weak bedding planes

31 promotes chipping that is controlled by the bedding inclination. In summary, the bedding plane

32 attributes to the variation of cutting force response, cutting size distribution, and even rock removal

33 mechanisms.

34

35 Keywords: shale, PDC, bedding plane, rock failure, chip formation

36

2
37 1 Introduction

38 Efficient drilling of Polycrystalline Diamond Compact (PDC) bit in shale formation recently attracts

39 much more attention since it is widely applicable in horizontal well drilling (Hanna, Douglas et al. 2011,

40 Soeder 2018, Zhai, Wang et al. 2018). Bedding plane is one nature of shale formation where the weak

41 strength and anisotropy mechanical properties fully exist. Figure 1 illustrates the contact relation of

42 PDC cutters and bedding planes with a contact angle. The contact angle would result in a more

43 complex shale drilling process. In order to offer basic guidelines for PDC cutter design and efficiency

44 improvement, influences of bedding planes on cutting force response and drilling efficiency should be

45 well recognized.

46

47 Fig. 1 Diagram of PDC bit drilling in bedding shale formation

48 Crushing and chipping are two widely accepted mechanisms of rock removal of the fixed cutters.

49 The crushing mode creates highly fractured and inelastically deformed rock, while major cracks initiate

50 and propagate to form big chips in chipping mode (Mishnaevsky 1995). However, the crushing and

51 chipping of rock is an extremely complex failure and cracking process that is controlled by two aspects:

52 rock properties and cutting situation. Cheatham and Daniels (Cheatham and Daniels 1979) investigated

53 the bit balling problems of clay shale drilling through single cutter experiments at atmospheric and

54 hydrostatic pressure conditions. They found that, the ductile and sticky nature of the clay shale were

3
55 two major contributors to the problems that the chip formation was similar to that of ductile metals

56 cutting. However, the cuttings generated under hydrostatic pressure were observed to be almost

57 identical to those achieved by cutting lead at atmospheric pressure. Finger (Finger 1984) developed a

58 linear cutting testbed and conducted a systematical rock cutting experiment on Berea sandstone and

59 Westerly granite. The large chips and a crushed powdery zone were identified by fluorescent dye. The

60 observations from experimental works were validated by Finite element and Discrete element

61 simulation (Huang, Detournay et al. 1999, Rojek, Onate et al. 2011, Jaime, Zhou et al. 2015). The

62 crushing failure and shear cracking mechanics were clarified through numerical analysis. Recently, Che

63 et al. (Che, Zhang et al. 2017) (Che and Ehmann 2014) proposed a comprehensive experimental scheme

64 to measure the force response and visualize chip formation process on Indiana limestone, Austin chalk,

65 and Berea sandstone. The chipping mode was found to highly correlate with the depth of cut, the rake

66 angle, and the rock types. Furthermore, they proposed a new cutting model by accounting for the

67 crushing zone and crack propagation behaviors from the observations of linear rock cutting (Che, Zhu

68 et al. 2016). The alternate sudden movements during chip formation was captured by high-speed

69 imaging and the crushing mode was found to occupy most of the time of an entire crushing and

70 chipping cycle (Cheng, Sheng et al. 2018). Moreover, the rake angle of the PDC cutter dramatically

71 affects the removal behaviors of crushed material where different cutting faces corresponds to specific

72 frictional angle and shear force on the rock failure plane. (Yahiaoui, Paris et al. 2016, Rostamsowlat,

73 Richard et al. 2018) Although the rock removal mechanisms have been illuminated so far from

74 numerical simulation and visualization experiments, yet most of studied rocks are relatively isotropic

75 and homogenous. The impacts of rock anisotropy, particularly weak bedding planes, are still required to

76 be recognized.

4
77 Many investigations attributed the anisotropy of rock mechanics and special failure behaviors to the

78 bedding planes of shale (Chenevert and Gatlin 1965, McLamore and Gray 1967, Niandou, Shao et al.

79 1997, Heng, Guo et al. 2015, Chen, Lan et al. 2018). The orientations of bedding planes determined the

80 failure mode since the weak strength is along the bedding planes. Moreover, the bedding plane slip was

81 identified to present a significant effect on borehole and casing stability. Special breakout patterns of the

82 laminated shale failure were found to be different from that of the isotropic formation and were

83 controlled by bedding inclination and in-situ stress conditions (Tien, Kuo et al. 2006, Labiouse and

84 Vietor 2014, Meier, Rybacki et al. 2015). Additionally, hydraulic fracture propagation was also

85 confirmed to be affected by bedding planes which promote the complexity of fracture network (Yushi,

86 Xinfang et al. 2016, Lin, He et al. 2017, Tang, Wu et al. 2018). In aspects of rock cutting, Ozcelik and

87 Yilmazkaya (Ozcelik and Yilmazkaya 2011) found the rock anisotropy, particularly the bedding

88 inclination to the cutting direction, was naturally sensitive to the cutting efficiency and force response

89 of diamond wire cutting. Gong and Liu (Gong, Zhao et al. 2005) (Liu, Xu et al. 2019) proposed a 2D

90 TBM cutting model to illustrate the joint orientation. They found the joint orientation could influence

91 the crack initiation and propagation as well as the fragmentation pattern. Though tremendous studies

92 demonstrate the importance of bedding planes on rock failure, wellbore stability, and hydraulic fracture

93 propagation, yet most of those studies did not discuss the effects of bedding plane on rock removal

94 mechanisms of PDC cutters, particularly for the cutting force response, chip formation process, and

95 complicated mechanisms.

96 In this paper, a series of single cutter experiments on laminated shale was conducted by considering

97 a wide range of bedding inclinations from 0° to 150°. The dynamic responses of cutting force, cutter

98 acceleration, and debris size distribution were obtained at different bedding inclinations. Extraordinary

5
 99 crushing and chipping patterns were captured by high-speed imaging technique. Based on the observed

100 phenomena, a conceptual cutting model of laminated shale formation was proposed and further

101 mechanisms were discussed.

102 2 Materials and method

103 2.1 Linear rock cutting testbed

104 A linear rock cutting testbed was built based on a mechanical shaping machine as illustrated in Figure 2.

105 The testbed could precisely control the cutting speed (100~1200mm/min) and cutting depth (accuracy

106 of 0.01 mm). A cutter holder was particularly designed to fix single PDC cutter. The rake angle of cutter

107 was capable to adjust into five levels of negative 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 degrees. A planar PDC cutter

108 with diameter of 13 mm and thickness of 25 mm, as a typical PDC bit cutter, was selected for this study.

109 The rock block was fixed by a specific holder to limit X and Y direction movement. In order to achieve

110 a linear cutting, the rock block was fed toward the cutter in x-direction while the cutter was kept

111 stationary.

112 Most importantly, the testbed was well equipped with a force measuring system, including a

113 single-component strain gauge (KYOWA KFWB-5-120-C1), which is close to the PDC cutter, a

114 unidirectional accelerator fixed at the cutter holder, and a data acquisition unit with a maximum

115 sampling rate of 100 Hz. Besides, a high-speed camera (Phantom V310) was used to visualize the chip

116 formation. The maximum resolution and recording speed of this high-speed camera are 1280 × 1024

117 and 50,000 fps.

6
118
Figure 2 Schematic diagram of (a) linear cutting testbed, (b)single PDC cutter scratching on shale

block, and (c) Conceptual model of single PDC cutting on bedding shale

119 2.2 Rock specimen preparation

120 Organic-rich shale is our target material where these samples were collected from the outcrop of Lower

121 Silurian Longmaxi formation, which is located at south Sichuan basin in Changning, China. The

122 bedding plane is well rich in the Longmaxi Shale as shown in Figure 3. Mineralogical composition was

123 obtained from X-ray diffraction as listed in Table 1 and it can be seen that over 60% minerals belong to

124 brittle minerals. Particularly, the clay minerals mainly consist of illite without serious hydration

125 swelling problems. The mechanical properties were particularly measured in different bedding

126 inclinations, according to ISRM standard.

127 The specimens were cored from the same block and reshaped into the cubic blocks with side length of

128 200 mm by using a diamond-saw cutting machine. Fine polish was carried out to ensure the parallelism

129 of opposite surfaces of specimen was less than 100 µm. The sample can be reused after milling and

130 polishing cutting surface again. In total, six cubic blocks were prepared with six bedding inclinations of

131 0o, 30o, 60o, 90o, 120o, and 150o (Figure 3). The specimen was required to be dried in an oven at 100

132 for 48 hours before testing in order to remove the fluid influence.

7
133
134 Figure 3 Photographs of six cubic blocks with the bedding inclinations of 0o, 30o, 60o, 90o, 120o,

135 and 150o

136 Table 1. Mineral components and content of shale sample

Minerals Weight content (wt.%)

Quartz 22.2~35.1%

Clay 14.5~19.2%

Calcite 26.8~31.4%

Feldspar 1.2~2.6%

Pyrite 1.1~3.1%

Siderite 0.2~0.4%

Dolomite 11.6~30.2%

Total 100%

137

138 Table 2 Rock mechanical properties of shale sample

Bedding inclination Rock density Young’s modulus Poisson ratio UCS

(°) (g/cm3) (GPa) (1) (MPa)

0 36.04 0.145 189.65

30 30.74 0.153 107.96
2.53~2.59
60 36.54 0.131 79.66
90 42.15 0.231 142.25

8
139

140 2.3 Experimental design and procedures

141 A series of linear rock cutting tests were conducted on the cubic shale blocks. The variable parameter of

142 the experiment was bedding inclination. Except that, other cutting parameters including the cutting

143 depth, cutting speed, and rake angle were controlled as constant. Before each test, the PDC cutter was

144 first moved vertically to set a prescribing cutting depth at the edge of the specimen. Then the rock was

145 fed toward the cutter along horizontal direction at a given cutting speed. For each test, the horizontal

146 force and acceleration on the cutter holder, regarding as horizontal cutting force, were recorded through

147 a uniaxial strain gauge and accelerator with a sampling rate of 100 Hz. A high-speed camera captured

148 the chip formation process in the sample rate of 1000 frame per second. After test, the rock debris were

149 collected by brush clean and the sieve analysis was carried out to obtain five groups of size: 0/10mesh,

150 10/20mesh, 20/40mesh, 40/80mesh, and 80/ mesh. The weight percentage of each group was finally

151 obtained to indicate the debris size distribution. The scratch profiles were finally imaged by 3D Laser

152 profile instrument and electrical microscope. In order to ensure the experimental repeatability, there are

153 three repeated tests in this study.

154 2.4 Force signal processing

155 Since the force and accelerator sensors were mounted on the cutter holder and kept stationary, there was

156 no signal while the stage moves without cutting. When the stage started to move at a constant cutting

157 speed, the PDC cutter will apply a cutting force on the shale sample. Meanwhile, system vibration and

158 discontinuously crushing and chipping process also led to dynamic acceleration change of the cutter.

159 The undesired noise originated from the system vibration usually belongs to a low frequency signal.

160 Hence, the low pass filter was used to ensure the noise-free force responses. The dynamic force

9
161 responses that expose a strong oscillation with respect to time indeed reflect sufficient information on

162 the rock removal behaviors, such as crushing and chipping phenomenon. Unfortunately, the dynamic

163 force responses are difficult to be characterized in a simple way. Previous researchers proposed the use

164 of average force within a certain cutting distance or period of time and then study the change of the

165 average forces with respect to various process parameters. In this study, both average cutting force and

166 frequency analysis were used to identify the influences of bedding plane on rock removal mechanisms.

167 3. Results

168 3.1 Influence of shale bedding on cutting force responses

169 Force responses, as important indicator of the rock cutting processes, are capable of revealing the

170 intrinsic mechanisms of rock cutting in a quantitative way. As shown in Figure 4, continuous force data

171 indicates a fairly periodic fluctuation in a certain amplitude and frequency. The force response can be

172 divided into two groups according to the amplitude and frequency of cutting force. Firstly, a relatively

173 big amplitude but low frequency force was observed from the specimens with bedding inclinations of

174 0°, 30°, 120°, 150°. Secondly, a low amplitude but high frequency force is obvious for bedding

175 inclinations of 60°, 90°. Moreover, the macro and micro cracks were observed from the bottom and

176 edge of scratch profiles. Discontinuously crushing and chipping occurs at shale rock cutting inferred

177 from the fluctuation of cutting force and rough scratch surfaces.

10
178
179 Figure 4. Responses of horizontal cutting force of single PDC cutter on shale bedding

180

181 As shown in Figure 5, a strong correlation can be observed between the time-averaged force

182 responses and bedding inclination. It behaves a parabolic curve in which the cutting force achieves

183 maximum value of 3.15 KN at 90-degree orientation. Furthermore, the maximum force value at 90

184 degree is more than twice value of the minimum force at 0 degree. It is interested that the cutting force

185 at 120-degree orientation is only less than 60% cutting force at 60-degree orientation, though those two

186 orientations are angle complementarity. However, there exists little difference between the cutting

187 forces at 150-degree and 30-degree.

11
188
189 Figure 5 Average horizontal cutting force versus bedding angle

190

191 Figure 6 shows the time-dependent acceleration of PDC cutter when cutting through parallel or

192 perpendicular to the shale beddings and their probability density distributions. A phenomenon was

193 observed that the amount of strong acceleration while cutting perpendicular to the bedding plane was

194 almost twice of that while cutting parallel to the bedding plane. It can be inferred that the vibration

195 response of PDC cutter is highly related to the bedding inclination.

196
197 Figure 6 Response of accelerate of single PDC cutter on parallel and vertical bedding

198

12
199 3.2 Chip formation phenomena

200 Chip formation is a process of rock debris creating controlled by the rock removal mechanisms. As

201 shown in Figure 7, the chip formation process was observed when cutting perpendicular to the bedding

202 plane. The powder cuttings are initially created in the front of PDC cutter and following several

203 chunk-like cuttings ejected from shale matrix subsequently, which corresponds to the crushing and

204 chipping phenomena, respectively.

205
206 Figure 7 Chip formation process of single PDC cutter at the laminated shale, the parallel lines

207 denote the bedding inclination.

208

209 Chip formation photography of different bedding inclinations were compared as illustrated in Figure 8.

210 Both the crack propagation and the final shape of chips dramatically change with the bedding

211 inclination. For instance, the wedge-plate cuttings were present while cutting parallel to the bedding

212 plane, but the slim-rod cuttings appeared in perpendicular cutting.

13
213
214 Figure 8 Chipping phenomenon for different bedding inclinations, the parallel lines denote the

215 bedding inclination

216

217 The cutting size distributions and their photography at different bedding inclinations were plotted

218 in Figure 9. It can be seen that the weight percentages of the fine debris (more than 20 mesh) perform a

219 good agreement with the cutting force response to the bedding inclination. If cutting perpendicular to

220 the bedding plane, more fine debris and less chunk-like debris will be formed when compared with

221 other orientations. However, the amount of chunk-like debris would be increasing when the cutting

222 direction is parallel to the bedding plane.

223

14
224 Figure 9 (a) Cutting size distribution and (b) photography for different bedding inclinations

225

226 The topography of debris was reconstructed by 3D confocal microscope as shown in Figure 10.

227 The topography changes from wedge plate to slim rod with the increasing bedding inclination.

228 Moreover, the obvious shear planes can be found due to the results of shear failure from weak bedding

229 planes. In other words, the weak bedding planes change the trajectory of shearing cracking.

230
231 Figure 10 Photography and 3D laser profiles of cuttings for three typical bedding inclinations

232

233 4 Discussion

234 4.1 Bedding planes control chip formation behaviors

235 Our results confirm that the bedding plane performs a profound influence on chip formation in the shale

236 cutting process with a PDC cutter. There coexists powder and chunk-like cuttings from chip formation

237 process. Moreover, the occurrence of periodic fluctuation of cutting force causes from two reasons: the

238 increase of cutting force as the chip-boundary crack propagates through the rock ahead of the cutter,

239 and then decrease as the chip detaches and the cutter moves into the vacant space. Such observations

240 support that the crushing and chipping should be two primary rock removal mechanisms of laminated

241 shale. Particularly, the bedding inclination determines the domination of crushing and chipping in the

242 rock removal. More chunk-like cuttings produced indicates that the chipping dominates rock removal

15
243 when cutting parallel to the bedding plane. More powder cuttings created demonstrates the chipping

244 dominates rock removal when cutting perpendicular to bedding plane. The cutting force responses

245 consist of these two processes; the crushing-dominated removal which consumes more cutting force

246 while the chipping-dominated removal which consumes less. For practical drilling, it can be inferred

247 that the efficiency of parallel drilling to the bedding plane is lower than that of perpendicular drilling.

248 4.2 Mechanical influence of shale bedding on rock removal

249 The variations of average cutting force originate from the mechanical influence of shale bedding. As

250 illustrated in Figure 11, a conceptual model of PDC cutting on the laminated shale was proposed to

251 demonstrate the force loading on the bedding planes. With a decrease of bedding inclination, an

252 increase of shear force and decrease of normal force promotes shear crack generation, which is induced

253 from weak bedding planes. Consequently, more chunk-like cuttings would be produced at low bedding

254 inclination. However, with an increase of bedding inclination, it becomes harder for shear cracks to

255 initiate because of the increase of normal stress on the bedding plane. In this situation, the PDC cutter

256 should overcome the shear strength of rock matrix. Such mechanical analysis explains the cutting force

257 perpendicular to the bedding plane is almost twice of that while parallel cutting.

258

259
260 Figure 11 Conceptual model of PDC cutting on bedding shale with the rake angle of PDC cutter, α

261 and bedding inclination, θ. Horizontal cutting force can be decomposed into normal force and

16
262 shear force aligning with bedding plane.

263

264 5 Conclusions

265 Influences of bedding planes on rock removal behaviors were emphasized through a series of single

266 cutter experiments. A wide range of bedding inclinations from 0° to 150° were taken account. It can be

267 concluded that the bedding planes control the chip formation process of PDC cutter. The bedding plane

268 attributes to the variation of cutting force response, cutting size distribution, and even rock removal

269 mechanisms. Our observations support that the crushing and chipping are still two primary rock

270 removal mechanisms of laminated shale. The bedding inclination regulates which mechanism

271 dominates the rock removal behaviors. Finally, a mechanical model of PDC cutting which takes the

272 bedding planes into consideration was proposed to clarify the impacts of bedding planes on rock

273 fragmentation.

274 Acknowledgements

275 This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant

276 No.U1562212) and the PetroChina Innovation Foundation (Grant No. 2018D-5007-0308).

277

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