Ablatible drill
OwnerWilliam C. Triplett, Walter H. Brauerinventors
Life of this patent
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Abstract
There is disclosed an ablatible drill comprising a soft or frangible matrix having embedded therein a multiplicity of hard inclusions which act as cutting teeth. During drilling, the matrix gradually wears away so that worn inclusions are circulated out of the hole and fresh inclusions are exposed as new cutting teeth. A plurality of joints of the ablatible drill are interconnected on the bottom of a drill string. The comminuted material of each joint of the ablatible drill provides a characteristic distinguishable from the comminuted material of adjacent joints so that in examination of the circulated returns provides an indication of which joint is then being drilled.
Claims9
A drill string comprising
- a string of drill pipe having a plurality of drill collars on the lower end thereof;
- and
- a bit, having a multiplicity of cutting elements, connected with the lowermost drill collar and comprising a plurality of interconnected joints defining a vertical axis, each joint including a matrix having therein a multiplicity of inclusions substantially harder than the matrix, the inclusions being distributed throughout the matrix from adjacent the axis to adjacent the periphery of each joint, the inclusions comprising the cutting elements.
A bit having a multiplicity of cutting elements and comprising a plurality of interconnected joints defining a vertical axis, each joint including a matrix having therein a multiplicity of inclusions substantially harder than the matrix, the inclusions being distributed throughout the matrix from adjacent the axis to adjacent the periphery of each joint, the inclusions comprising the cutting elements;
- and means for rotating the bit.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.