Composite Drill Pipes

Composite materials have a huge impact on almost every industry. One of them is the oil and gas sector. Drill pipes are mostly used for drilling and extracting applications for oil. Generally, pressure resistance and drilling capabilities are high for these types of pipes. Therefore, the industry requires high strength and capable solutions for the pipe.

Composite Solution

At first glance, using composite material for the drilling pipe can be seen easily because of the pipe geometry. However, they must be as strong as or even stronger than steel ones because of the drilling impact of the structural mechanism. Drilling application requires stability and high mechanical properties to balance dynamic moment and external forces. Therefore, achieving this type of mechanical properties can be possible with carbon fiber only with adequate manufacturing method and fiber choice.

Manufacturing Method to Achieve High Properties

Depending on the requirement and geometrical shape of the pipe, filament winding is the best suitable solution for the drill pipes. Considering the other manufacturing methods for the drill pipe, providing this level of mechanical strength and dynamic stability are not an easy task with different methods.

Filament winding allows acquiring stiffness as high as steel and a significant damping ratio with proper fiber placement. As it is an automated process, automatically aligned fibers create a superior strengthened composite part with a significantly reduced weight compared with the steel. Also, corrosion resistance is an additional considerable advantage of the composite part.

As a result of the manufacturing method and using carbon fibers:

· Increased drilling capacity with higher mechanical properties

· Lower weight compared to steel

· Corrosion resistance — longer operational life

· Reduced maintenance cost

· Significant dynamic stability for the drilling application