A DRILLING MODEL-BASED ON COUPLING BETWEEN ROCK CRUSHING EFFECTS AND BOTTOM-HOLE HYDRAULIC CLEANING OF CUTTINGS (SOLID BALANCE)

The first part reviews the progress made in representing the phenomenon of drillability and the insufficiency of current models that neglect the hydraulic dimension. The analysis of weight on bit logs, torque and rate of penetration must be revised, and the insight provided by the proposed representation seems to be of help in solving various interpretation difficulties. The ambiguity created by the simultaneous presence of two possible plugging mechanisms - one stemming from the contact of the bit and the other from the bottom of the borehole - is dealt with. The second part describes the model itself. It is a preliminary sketch combined with physical hypotheses, some of which may seem approximate. Its importance lies in showing that, with rudimentary but intuitively satisfactory considerations, the essential of the phenomenon is described, and especially the rate of the balling-up process as described by D. Close (1993). This outline with fairly restrictive hypotheses thus calls for improvements of all sorts, which are abundantly commented on.