Development of Improved Hardbanding materials for Drill pipe in oil and gas drilling operations

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This project concerns the extraction of oil and gas; a successful outcome would also be ofbenefit to the UK’s burgeoning shale gas industry.Individual drill pipe tool joints and other vulnerable areas of drill string components havebeen protected for a long time from abrasive wear using hardbanding welding technique thatinvolved a selective application of strips or pads of wear-resistant material typicallycontaining tungsten carbide. The drill string runs inside an outer casing and wear of the casinghas become a significant problem.Whilst tungsten carbides provide excellent protection for the drill pipe joints, it is veryaggressive to the casing leading to premature failure of the latter.As easily accessed reserves become depleted there is a requirement to drill to ever increasingdepths whilst new technology allows highly deviated wells such as horizontal drilling,multidirectional drilling and extended reach drilling. All of these techniques create situationswhere the hardbanding can come into contact with the casing. In addition to causing failure ofthe casing by wear such points of contact also produces friction and torque that impedes thedrilling process.There is thus a requirement for a hardbanding material that whilst providing adequateprotection against wear of the pipe joint is also casing friendly and has low friction properties.Casing failures are of course expensive but also have a significant environmental impact asthe well is no longer constrained leading to uncontrolled leakage.The aim of this project is to provide a solution to this problem by developing a hardbandingproduct that combines high wear resistance with low coefficient of friction.A combination of the following mechanisms will be explored.• Control of chemistry to promote favourable changes in the microstructure andcrystallinity of the matrix alloy.• Addition of spherical wear resistant particles.• Addition of solid lubricating additives into the matrix.