Directional Drilling Tool Simulation and System Design

In order to develop from feasibility, and validate from first principles control strategies for down-hole directional drilling tools for the oil industry a non-linear, transient coupled system model has been developed. This paper reports on the basic physics and operation of the directional drilling tools and incorporates these principles into a simulation environment which includes sensor models (accelerometers and magnetometers) so that realistic azimuth and inclination measurements can be simulated in a fully coupled way with the dynamics of the tool. The drilling simulator environment is implemented in Matlab/Simulink® thus enabling control algorithms and sub-system models (bit mechanics etc) to be incorporated into the simulation environment as required. A case study of a vertical drilling algorithm is included in the paper to demonstrate the use of such a drilling simulator for development of control algorithms for trajectory control of directional drilling tools.