Research progress of 3D printing PDC and PDC bit

Abstract

PDC bit has become the preferred type of drill bits in the field of oil and gas exploration. The ever-increasing performance requirements of PDC bits, especially the drilling efficiency, have brought great challenges to the drill bits. The improvement of the drill bit working face structure is crucial to the efficient rock breaking of PDC bits. However, this brings great difficulties to the manufacture of drill bits. 3D printing technology is a new type of rapid prototyping technology which has the advantages of manufacturing any complex shape structures, personalized customization and creative design. It is an inevitable trend to apply 3D printing technology to the production of PDC bits. This paper focuses on the basic principles of 3D printing technologies currently used to prepare PDC bits, including photolithography (SLA), fused deposition (FDM), selective laser sintering (SLS), selective laser melting (SLM) and three dimensional printing (3DP), etc. And then it summarizes the research progress of the existing 3D printing technology in the manufacture of PDC and PDC bits, and gives an outlook on the development of 3D printing PDC and PDC bits in the future.

Keywords

• 3d printing
• polycrystalline diamond compacts
• pdc bit
• mould forming
• complex structure