Numerical and experimental studies of stick–slip oscillations in drill-strings

The cyclic nature of the stick–slip phenomenon may cause catastrophic failures in drill-strings or at the very least could lead to the wear of expensive equipment. Therefore, it is important to study the drilling parameters which can lead to stick–slip, in order to develop appropriate control methods for suppression. This paper studies the stick–slip oscillations encountered in drill-strings from both numerical and experimental points of view. The numerical part is carried out based on path-following methods for non-smooth dynamical systems, with a special focus on the multistability in drill-strings. Our analysis shows that, under a certain parameter window, the multistability can be used to steer the response of the drill-strings from a sticking equilibrium or stick–slip oscillation to an equilibrium with constant drill-bit rotation. In addition, a small-scale downhole drilling rig was implemented to conduct a parametric study of the stick–slip phenomenon. The parametric study involves the use of two flexible shafts with varying mechanical properties to observe the effects that would have on stick–slip during operation. Our experimental results demonstrate that varying some of the mechanical properties of the drill-string could in fact control the nature of stick–slip oscillations.