Application of Three-Dimensional Printing Technology to the Manufacture of Petroleum Drill Bits

Drill bits are the main rock-breaking tools in the petroleum and gas industry. Their performance directly affects the quality, efficiency, and cost of drilling. Drill bit manufacturing mainly employs traditional mold forming processes such as milling molding and press molding, which have low production efficiency and long processing cycles and are not conducive to rapid responses to field requirements. Inadequate production accuracy makes it difficult to produce drill bits with complex structures. Three-dimensional (3D) printing technology has fast molding speeds and high molding accuracy. In this paper, 3D printing was applied for the first time to the manufacture of molds for carcass polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) drill bits and PDC–cone hybrid drill bits. In comparison with forging and milling molding, 3D printing improved production efficiency. The manufactured molds had higher machining accuracy. The ability of 3D printing to make molds with complex surfaces enables the development of drill bits with complex structures. A field experiment was conducted on a PDC drill bit produced by 3D printing, which had a higher rate of penetration and was more efficient in breaking rocks than bits manufactured by traditional processes. The ROP of the drill bit increased by 20.1–25.8%, and the drilling depth increased by 7.7–29.5%. It is therefore feasible to apply 3D printing to the manufacture of petroleum drill bits.