New Drill Bits to Make Geothermal Cheaper
22.05.12
About 30 years ago Sandia Labs developed polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) bits for geothermal drilling. Today nearly two-thirds of the oil we use comes from wells drilled using the (PDC) bits. That’s technology gone astray, valuable – and still missing the original point. Now Sandia and the U.S. Navy recently brought the technology back full circle , showing how geothermal drillers might use the original PDC technology with added decades of improvements by the oil and gas industry.
Polycrystalline diamond compact cutters on the cutting faces of bits allow more aggressive drilling than bits traditionally used for geothermal drilling. PDCs are created by a sintering process . Starting with a tungsten carbine cutting face graphite powder is applied. The whole assembly of materials is compressed in three directions at pressures of 1 million pounds per square inch. When heated to a transition temperature, the graphite converts a to a 1-millimeter layer of synthetic diamond.
Source: OilPrice.com