Measurement While Drilling For Tricone Wear Monitoring
Mr Hamed Rafezi (PhD Candidate - McGill University), Prof Ferri Hassani (Professor - McGill University)
While mining industry is moving toward automation and increasing the efficiently and precision in production, successful drilling condition monitoring is a vital step forward. Drilling and blasting are two preliminary tasks in surface mining and Tricone bits are preferred in most rotary drilling applications for blasthole drilling. Bit health condition effects the drilling performance significantly and total drilling cost consequently. In addition, determination of the best time to change the bit is a crucial issue and bit failure during the operation will result in subsequent costs for the mining company. Present research at McGill University is a new approach for tricone wear monitoring. The project includes an extensive MWD (Monitoring-While-Drilling) based on full scale in-situ tests in participating mine site in Canada. A drill rig was equipped with a data acquisition unit and several accelerometers on different spots of the machine. Drilling signals have been evaluated and analyzed using statistical and frequency spectrum analysis approaches and vertical vibration and rotary motor electrical current signals have been detected as bit wear sensitive signals. Certain statistical features of current signal follow a meaningful trend as the bit wear increases and frequency components of vibration signal sensitive to wear are determined and evaluated. Developed approach is able to detect the bit wear and also to predict the bit failure to avoid catastrophic failure in the operation.
