Influence of friction on buckling of a drill string in the circular channel of a bore hole

Abstract Enhancement of technology and techniques for drilling deep directed oil and gas bore hole is one of the most important problems of the current petroleum industry. Not infrequently, the drilling of these bore holes is attended by occurrence of extraordinary situations associated with technical accidents. Among these is the Eulerian loss of stability of a drill string in the channel of a curvilinear bore hole. Methods of computer simulation should play a dominant role in prediction of these states. In this paper, a new statement of the problem of critical buckling of the drill strings in 3D curvilinear bore holes is proposed. It is based on combined use of the theory of curvilinear elastic rods, Eulerian theory of stability, theory of channel surfaces, and methods of classical mechanics of systems with nonlinear constraints. It is noted that the stated problem is singularly perturbed and its solutions have the shapes of localized harmonic wavelets. The calculation results showed that the friction effects lead to essential redistribution of internal axial forces, as well as changing the eigenmode shapes and sites of their localization. These features make the buckling phenomena less predictable and raise the role of computer simulation of these effects.