Analysis of technical and technological solutions for increasing the failure rate of drilling equipment

Drilling pumps are key elements of a drilling rig, designed to pump drilling mud into the well during the drilling process. During operation, drilling pumps operate under conditions of high pressures, temperatures, vibrations, and dynamic loads. These factors accelerate the wear and tear of the equipment and increase the likelihood of failures. The causes of drilling pump failures include wear and tear of the equipment (parts or components), corrosion caused by the pumped fluids, installation errors, and violations of maintenance procedures, among others. An important task in ensuring their reliability is to develop effective methods of surface hardening that can increase the wear resistance of structural steel parts. An anodic electrolytic plasma treatment (AEPT) that combines carburization and hardening in an electrolyte is a promising approach. This article evaluates the impact of AEPT on the wear resistance of steel 20 and calculates the expected increase in the service life of drilling pump bushings. The abrasive wear resistance tests were conducted using a monolithic abrasive test setup. As a result of the study, it was determined that the AEPT of steel 20 in the electrolyte increases abrasive wear resistance by 2.5 times compared to the initial state, the spread of wear resistance values after treatment decreases by 4 times, its application will increase the mean time between failures from 200–250 to 500–625 hours, i.e., by 2.5 times, and it is also advisable to use it to increase the service life of oil and gas equipment parts that operate under conditions of abrasive wear.