Investigation on fatigue life of push-the-bit rotary steerable bottom hole assembly with random bit-rock interaction

Rotary steerable systems are critical for challenging boreholes in deep-sea oil and gas drilling, where fatigue failure is the normal form of damage. A procedure with deterministic excitation and random excitation is presented in this paper to reliably predict the fatigue life of the bottom hole assembly. The initial defects, the Coulomb friction model, frictional contact between the drill bit and rock, and the stochastic rock-cutting process are included in the model. Monte Carlo approach is used to obtain the Statistical characteristics of the stochastic model. Based on the program mentioned above, influences of some parameters, such as rotational speed, weight on bit, steering force, and random excitation on torsional vibration characteristics, are investigated. Moreover, the rain-flow counting method is applied to reveal the dependency relationship between fatigue life and torsional vibration. It is found that random excitation can exacerbate the torsional vibration phenomenon and even significantly reduce the fatigue life. Finally, compared with the deterministic system, the sensitivity index coefficient of the fatigue life in the random excitation model is about 0.8 % - 2.2 % higher. The research results can provide a theoretical basis for reducing tool failure in on-site deep-sea oil and gas drilling. © 2024 Elsevier Ltd.