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Experimental Validation of Torsional Controllers for Drilling Systems

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Advanced Topics in Nonsmooth Dynamics

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Abstract

Torsional stick-slip vibrations decrease the performance, reliability and fail-safety of drilling systems used for the exploration and harvesting of oil, gas, minerals and geo-thermal energy. Current industrial controllers regularly fail to eliminate stick-slip vibrations, especially when multiple torsional flexibility modes in the drill-string dynamics play a role in the onset of stick-slip vibrations. This chapter presents the experimental validation of novel robust output-feedback controllers designed to eliminate stick-slip vibrations in the presence of multiple dominant torsional flexibility modes. For this purpose, a representative experimental test setup is designed, using a model of a real-life drilling rig as a basis. The model of the dynamics of the experimental setup can be cast in Lur’e-type form with set-valued nonlinearities representing an (uncertain) model for the complex bit-rock interaction and the interaction between the drill-string and the borehole. The proposed controller design strategy is based on skewed-\(\mu \)-DK-iteration and aims at optimizing the robustness with respect to uncertainty in the non-smooth bit-rock interaction. Moreover, a closed-loop stability analysis for the non-smooth drill-string model is provided. Experimental results confirm that stick-slip vibrations are indeed eliminated using the designed controller in realistic drilling scenarios in which state-of-practice controllers have failed to achieve the same.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    \({\mathscr {H}_\infty }\) is a (closed) Banach space of matrix-valued functions that are analytic in the open right-half plane and bounded on the imaginary axis. The real rational subspace of \({\mathscr {H}_\infty }\) is denoted by \(\mathscr {R}{\mathscr {H}_\infty }\), which consists of all proper and real rational stable transfer matrices [41, Sect. 4.3].

  2. 2.

    Note that due to scaling, this corresponds to 35 rpm on a real drilling rig.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Department of Mechanical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    N. van de Wouw & H. Nijmeijer

  2. Delft Center for Systems and Control, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    N. van de Wouw

  3. The Department of Civil, Environmental & Geo-Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA

    N. van de Wouw

  4. Océ Technologies B.V., Venlo, The Netherlands

    T. Vromen

  5. YER, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    M. J. M. van Helmond

  6. Shell Global Solutions International B.V., Rijswijk, The Netherlands

    P. Astrid

  7. GeoSea nv, Geotechnical and Offshore Solutions, Zwijndrecht, Belgium

    A. Doris

Authors
  1. N. van de Wouw
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  2. T. Vromen
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  4. P. Astrid
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  5. A. Doris
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  6. H. Nijmeijer
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to N. van de Wouw .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Nonlinear Mechanics, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany

    Remco Leine

  2. Inria Grenoble—Rhône-Alpes Research Centre, Saint Ismier Cedex, France

    Vincent Acary

  3. Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium

    Olivier Brüls

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van de Wouw, N., Vromen, T., van Helmond, M.J.M., Astrid, P., Doris, A., Nijmeijer, H. (2018). Experimental Validation of Torsional Controllers for Drilling Systems. In: Leine, R., Acary, V., Brüls, O. (eds) Advanced Topics in Nonsmooth Dynamics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75972-2_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75972-2_8

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