10.5281/zenodo.7274081
https://zenodo.org/records/7274081
oai:zenodo.org:7274081
Wessling, Albin
Albin
Wessling
Luleå University of Technology
Kajberg, Jörgen
Jörgen
Kajberg
Luleå University of Technology
Larsson, Simon
Simon
Larsson
Luleå University of Technology
Jonsén, Pär
Pär
Jonsén
Luleå University of Technology
Ramírez, Giselle
Giselle
Ramírez
EURECAT
Vilaseca, Montserrat
Montserrat
Vilaseca
EURECAT
Discrete Element Modelling of Rock Drilling
Zenodo
2022
rock drilling
DEM
BDEM
PFEM
geothermal
2022-10-17
eng
10.5281/zenodo.7274080
https://zenodo.org/communities/geofit
https://zenodo.org/communities/eu
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Percussive rotary drilling is recognized as the most efficient method for hard rock drilling. Despite clear advantages over conventional rotary methods, there are still some uncertainties associated with percussive drilling. For geothermal applications, drilling accounts for a large portion of the total cost. Specifically, the wear of drill bits when drilling in hard rock is a predominant cost factor and drilling parameters are often based on the experience of the field operator. Within the framework of the H2020 project GEOFIT, numerical simulations of percussive drilling are performed in order to evaluate the rock drilling process and gain insight about the trade-off between wear and Rate of Penetration (ROP). In the simulations, the rock material was represented by the Bonded Discrete Element Method (BDEM), the drill bit by the Finite Element Method (FEM), the drilling fluid by the Particle Finite Element Method (PFEM) and the abrasive wear on the surface of the drill bit was represented by Archard’s wear law. The drilling simulations were conducted for two rock materials; a sedimentary rock material corresponding to what was found when drilling at the GEOFIT pilot site in Aran Islands, Ireland, and a harder reference rock similar to granite. The results show that, at a drill bit impact force of 10 kN, the ROP in the sedimentary rock was 6.3 times faster than for granite. When increasing the impact force to 40 and 50 kN, however, the ROP for the sedimentary rock is only 1.9 and 1.6 times faster, respectively. Furthermore, the wear rate decreased with increased impact force when drilling in the granite rock. For the sedimentary rock, however, the loading resulting in the best trade-off between abrasive wear and ROP was the second highest loading of 40 kN, which suggests that an increase in impact energy may increase the rate of penetration but may not be economically motivated.
Raw data is available for download here.
European Commission
10.13039/501100000780
792210
Deployment of novel GEOthermal systems, technologies and tools for energy efficient building retroFITting.