Experimental Results and Proposed Electromechanical Model for Vibrational Communication in Mining and Oil-Gas Drill Strings

In borehole mining and oil and gas drilling, the drilling process is invisible from the surface, which is why a two-way communication method between the drill head and the surface is a must. The popular industrial instrumentation technique, widely known as measurement while drilling (MWD), has enabled industries to save costly employee hours and gain more control over the drill bit direction. There are four major methods used throughout history, where the mud pulse telemetry technique has become the state of the art because of its simplicity and convenience. However, like other methods, it has a major drawback of having a slow data transmission rate. Moreover, other methods have different issues which include large attenuation of the data that is transferred through drill pipes. Acoustic telemetry is the most recent method of transferring data through a solid medium, a technique using continuous wave propagation of forces in the wall of the pipe. A proper use of this new method is expected to become popular in the mining and oil-gas industries because of its faster data transmission rate and ability to ignore most attenuating parameters. This method is still in its optimization stage, and the use of a convenient tool to match the transducer with the parameters of the drill pipe and surroundings is still a challenge to overcome. This paper will propose a simulation model to simulate the transmission of data through drill pipes, and will show experimental results of such arrangement justifying the opportunities ahead in this field.