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The current state of PDC bit technology

Article · October 2010

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Reprinted from:
DRILLING

September 2010 issue, pages 41-46. Used with permission.

The current state of PDC bit technology

Part 1 of 3: Development and application of polycrystalline diamond compact
bits have overcome complex challenges from the difficulty of reliably mounting
PDC cutters in bit bodies to accelerated thermal wear.
Federico Bellin, Alfazazi Dourfaye, William King and Mike Thigpen, Varel International

Polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) cutters and bits EARLY TECHNICAL CHALLENGES
have been a significant contributor to the greatly improved In the three decades since 1980, the development and ap-
efficiencies and economics of oil and gas drilling over the last plication of PDC bits has moved forward in steps that sequen-
30 years. This article—the first of a series of three on the evo- tially overcame the most immediate challenges of the time.
lution, current state of the art and long-term outlook for this The first difficulty was reliably mounting PDC cutters in bit
technology that has revolutionized the drilling industry—will bodies. Brazing techniques and practice of the day frequent-
cover the technology’s early commercial history and technical ly led to debilitating cutter loss and failed runs. Post-mount
challenges, and will address the major issues encountered in press-fit cutters that were deployed in steel-body bits were
PDC cutter manufacturing. prone to fracture breakage of the post at the mounting point
and to loss through erosion of the steel bit body. Improved
ADVENT OF PDC TECHNOLOGY brazing and mounting pockets provided solutions.
Polycrystalline diamond compact cutters, referred to at Early PDC application guidelines required oil-based drill-
the time by the trade name Stratapax, were first developed by ing fluids, especially in shales, limiting the products’ mar-
General Electric in 1973. They utilized GE’s earlier invention, ket potential. Bladed bit designs with deeper junk slots and
monocrystalline manmade diamond, which was reloaded into greater open face volume combined with improved jet nozzle
a pressure cell with a tungsten carbide substrate and re-pressed hydraulics experience opened up economic applications in
to produce a compact of 13-mm diameter and 3.3-mm length water-based fluids as well.
that incorporated a 0.5-mm-thick diamond table. In the press
cycle, cobalt in the substrate would sweep into the diamond Mitigation of bit whirl. The next major hurdle was over-
crystals and act as a catalyst to produce diamond-to-diamond coming the effects of impact damage to the PDC cutter. This
bonds resulting in the creation of a polycrystalline diamond type of damage was typically manifested by diamond table de-
table bonded to the tungsten carbide substrate. GE mounted lamination from the cutter substrate, escalating to cracking or
the new cutting elements onto longer tungsten carbide cyl- breakage of cutter substrates, and frequently culminating in
inders, or alternatively onto tungsten carbide posts, and set gross breakage of cutter pockets and bit blades.
about marketing the capabilities of PDC through the commis- The initial solution to this problem was the develop-
sioning of test bit production for lab and field testing. ment of non-planar diamond-to-substrate interfaces. These
PDC drill bits first found very limited commercial applica- consisted of grooves and other patterns on the face of the
tions in oil and gas drilling in the late 1970s. Early areas of suc- tungsten carbide substrate that allowed for a transition zone
cess included South Texas and the North Sea. Dr. William C. between the extremely stiff diamond table and the somewhat
Maurer’s 1980 text Advanced Drilling Techniques included an more flexible substrate. These interfaces resulted in reduced
entire chapter titled “Stratapax bits” on PDC cutters and bits diamond table delamination.
that summarized the state of the art for this new cutting element At this stage of development, PDC bits had increased
and its potential for drilling. The concluding paragraph of the their market presence to about 15% of all footage drilled
chapter reads as follows: “Tests to date indicate that STRATA- and were considered by many to have neared the peak of
PAX bits have potential for significantly reducing drilling costs their potential development. A major advancement, however,
in the mining, geothermal, and petroleum industries. Improved was made by Amoco’s recognition of the phenomenon of “bit
STRATAPAX bits would allow increased use of high speed drill- whirl” in the late 1980s. This self-regenerating off-center rota-
ing motors which would further increase drilling rate and re- tion condition caused PDC drill bits to experience high lateral
duce drilling costs. Because of this high potential payout, R&D forces that were responsible for much of the run-ending impact
on STRATAPAX bits should be significantly increased.” damage seen on many dull bits, especially where harder tran-
Research and development expenditures indeed followed, sitional layers were encountered in otherwise PDC-drillable
including further efforts by GE. In addition, the traditional rock columns. Over the next several years, the PDC bit design
natural diamond and roller-cone drill bit companies increas- community developed technologies and methods to mitigate
ingly devoted efforts to the commercial application of PDC bit whirl, including force balancing, blade asymmetry, blade
in drilling. They were joined by startup PDC bit companies and gage spiraling, cutter tracking, smooth gage configura-
including Davis & Hicks and Stratabit. Even with all the early tions and penetration limiters.
focus given to PDC bits, by 1982 they still were responsible These developments increased the potential for the econom-
for less than 2% of all footage drilled. ic application of PDC bits and drove the next development:
DRILLING

improved rock analysis tools to better program and apply PDC press. Other technologies exist, but their use is limited to re-
bits. Predictive lithology analysis coupled with prescriptive op- search and development, where very high pressures and temper-
erating parameter plans increased the efficiency and economic atures are achieved on tiny samples mainly for geology studies.
success rate of PDC bits. By the late 1990s, PDC bits account- The belt press concept was the first, developed in the 1950s
ed for about 45% of all footage drilled in the oil field. when GE managed to grow diamond crystals for the first time
in history, Fig. 1. Modern systems are not too different from
Resistance to abrasive wear. With earlier challenges in- the initial 1954 design; the main improvements consist of
cluding bit balling, cutter loss, impact damage and improper changes in the cell size increment and the development of
programing all mitigated, the next challenge was to improve HPHT cell materials with better properties and consistency.
the attribute most sought after in diamond, the resistance to Usually, the two conical anvils and the die are made of hard
abrasive wear. PDC cutters were subject to thermal damage metal such as tungsten carbide-cobalt (WC-Co), while the
and accelerated wear at the cutting tip, due in large part to the binding rings, which are mounted with increasing mechanical
residual cobalt catalyst remaining in the interstitial matrix of interference, are made of high-strength steel.
the cutters’ polycrystalline diamond face. By reducing the co- A load is applied axially to the top and bottom anvils, which
balt content in the outermost layer of the diamond table, the are pushed inward against the high-pressure cell placed inside
cutters’ abrasion resistance and thermal stability were signifi- the die. The cell’s ceramic material is squeezed out into the gap
cantly improved, allowing PDC bits to compete economically between the die and the anvil flank surfaces, providing a seal
with roller-cone bits in even more applications. against the increased pressure within the cell. An electric current
In 2010, PDC bits account for an astounding 65% of foot- is then flowed through a graphite heater to raise the temperature
age drilled in oil and gas applications and still do not appear to of the inner portion of the cell to begin the sintering process.
have peaked in their development. More research than ever is Cubic press technology was originally developed as an al-
going into PDC bits, and especially into PDC cutters. ternative method of generating the diamond synthesis condi-
tions. The cell has a cubic shape, and six hard metal anvils are
PDC MATERIALS AND PROCESSING pushed against the six cube faces, Fig. 2. In this type of press,
Polycrystalline diamond compacts are produced by sinter- also, the edges of the ceramic material are squeezed out into
ing diamond grit with a catalyst in an ultra-high-pressure and the gaps between the anvil faces, providing the sealing effect
high-temperature process. PDCs are among the most rigid of in the same way the belt press does. Again, force is applied and
all diamond tool materials. They exist in various structures and the temperature altered to begin diamond sintering.
shapes, but generally for oilfield drill bits, a layer of polycrystal- When designing and operating an HPHT system, the chal-
line diamond is atop a cylindrical tungsten carbide substrate. lenge is to reach the 800,000 psi and 2,600°F required for sin-
tering while maximizing the life expectancy of the expensive
Making the diamond. Since GE manufactured the first hard metal tools used as anvils and dies. PCD and synthetic
manmade diamond in 1954, the technology has spread around diamond manufacturers are constantly striving to improve
the world. Increasingly large high-pressure/high-temperature the performance and the cost-effectiveness of their HPHT
(HPHT) tools have been developed. Even so, the concepts and systems, so more extreme sintering conditions can deliver the
even the materials used to make the HPHT cells are basically next generation of high-performance drilling products.
the same. The two main press technologies currently used to
produce virtually all synthetic diamond powder and sintered Pressure. In traditional PCD manufacturing, pressure and
polycrystalline diamond (PCD) are the belt press and the cubic temperature are two critical variables due to their importance

Fig. 1. The cutaway diagram of the original GE belt press. Fig. 2. A modern cubic press. Courtesy of US Synthetic.

WORLD OIL SEPTEMBER 2010

DRILLING

in determining the final properties of the sintered diamond every 100°F temperature increase requires a pressure increase of
product and also for the technical challenges involved in de- 14,500 psi to remain in the diamond stable range. It is also clear
signing the HPHT apparatus. that the need for a fast reaction (and, thus, high temperature)
At atmospheric pressure, diamond is not in a thermodynam- is in conflict with the manufacturing necessity of working at
ically stable phase, but graphite is. The fact that diamonds are lower pressures to extend the life of the high-pressure tools.
not spontaneously converting to black carbon at room pressure Usually the diamond powder sintering process consists of
and temperature is due to the fact that the speed of the reaction two steps. First, pressure is raised to its nominal level with little
is virtually zero. If the temperature surpasses 2,200°F, however, or no heating. During this stage, all the crystals are being pushed
the reaction pace will increase, leading to the spontaneous con- against each other with increasing force. Many diamond par-
version of diamond to graphite. To make diamond, or to sinter ticles are sliding relative to each other and many are cracking
it, it is necessary for the conditions to support the thermody- into two or more fragments with the overall effect of increasing
namically stable phase of diamond rather than graphite. In other the powder apparent density. The powder crushing caused by
words, we need to increase pressure together with temperature the pressure increase can be easily quantified by measuring the
to speed up the synthesis, or bonding, process. Figure 3 shows particle size distribution before and after a full-pressure cold
the graphite-diamond equilibrium curve, according to which run, Fig. 4. Interestingly, a coarser powder presents a higher
degree of crushing than a finer one. This fact can be easily ex-
plained in terms of average number of contact points per unit
100 volume (much higher for fine powders), thus lower contact
stress and lower probability for a small particle to fail.
90 Second, when the crushed and compacted powder is under
full pressure, the temperature is raised to its nominal value.
80 The diamond powder is usually packed against a cobalt (WC-
Diamond Co) substrate, which is the source of the catalyst metal that
70 promotes the sintering process. When the cobalt reaches its
Extrapolated melting temperature of 2,615°F at 841,200 psi, it’s instanta-
60 neously squeezed into the open porosity left in the layer of
Pressure, katm

compacted diamond powder. At this point, the sintering pro-

50 cess takes place through a mechanism of carbon dissolution
Graphite and precipitation—the driving force being the reduction of
40 the overall internal energy. Technically, this process is defined
as a pressure-assisted liquid-phase sintering. The driving force
30 for the densification under an external pressure is determined
Calculated by the pressure itself and also by the contact area relative to
20 the cross-sectional area of the particles. The reaction speed is
proportional to the temperature and to the average effective
10 pressure P*, which is the actual contact pressure between par-
ticles, as expressed in the equation:
0
0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500 log(d / dt) 
Dl P * /(RT )
Temperature, K
where  is the powder apparent density, Dl is the carbon dif-
Fig. 3. The graphite-diamond equilibrium curve. fusivity in the molten metal catalyst, R is the ideal gas constant
and T is the temperature. As the equation shows, the sintering
process is faster if we increase both the contact pressure and
the temperature. The contact pressure P* can be expressed as:
40–60
P*
(4a 2 / (Zx 2 ))  Pappl

3–6 where a is the average particle size, x is the radius of the con-
tact area between two spherical particles, Z is the number of
surrounding particles and Pappl is the external pressure applied
Grade, µm

4–8
to the system. Clearly, smaller grain size and better packing
Sintered diamond compact result in lower contact pressure; thus, when sintering PCD
10–15 grades with small average grain sizes, higher pressures and
Started diamond powder
temperatures are usually required.
22–36
Grain size. A single diamond crystal is extremely hard and has
40–60 a very high wear abrasion resistance and thermal stability, but it
is a highly anisotropic material: Its properties are different de-
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 pending on the plane in which they are measured. This allows
Grain size, µm the natural gemstones to be cut along specific “cleavage” planes
Adapted from Uehara, K. and S. Yamaya, “High pressure sintering
of diamond by cobalt infiltration,” in Science and Technology of where the energy required to split the crystal is at its minimum.
New Diamond, 1990, pp. 203–209. In a diamond sintered compound, all the weak planes are ran-
Fig. 4. Grade-to-grain size chart.
domly oriented so, at a macroscopic scale, the material will be-
have isotropically with improved impact strength.
WORLD OIL SEPTEMBER 2010
DRILLING

When designing a novel PCD grade for drilling applica- wheels, loose diamond powder). The two main catalytic sys-
tions, it is possible to mix together diamond powders with tems used for the diamond synthesis are based on cobalt and
different average particle sizes and dimensional statistical on an iron-nickel alloy.
distributions. As a rule of thumb, it can be assumed that the The industrial diamond powder available on the market has
smaller the size of the crystals sintered together, the higher an extremely wide quality range. The micronized powders used
the wear abrasion resistance—at the expense of lower impact in the sintering process are usually made by crushing coarser
strength. The opposite is true when the diamond powder ones, so the quality of the initial industrial powder affects that
recipe includes coarser starting powders even if, according to of the shear cutter feedstock crystals. Depending on the press
some studies, increasing the average grain size above 50 μm cycle parameters (mainly pressure and temperature), crystals
doesn’t significantly improve PCD toughness. The lower limit can be grown with different shapes (e.g., cubic rather than octa-
in terms of powder size is set by manufacturing issues that can hedral). Furthermore, if the crystals are growing too fast within
be summarized as a) increasingly high pressures required to the molten catalyst bath, it is possible to find metal inclusions
consistently sinter the tiny diamond crystals and b) difficulties buried deep inside the crystal at the end of the cycle.
in controlling the grain growth during the process. Other quality issues concern the diamond powder extrac-
It is worth mentioning the importance of the particle tion and cleaning process from the solidified alloy catalyst in
size distribution besides the crystals’ average grain size. Mix- which synthesis took place. Usually this is done by dissolving
ing particles with a wide range of dimensions is important the metal in a hot bath of hydrochloric and nitric acid, then
to achieve a good degree of powder packing: Minimizing the rinsing and cleaning to remove any residue left by the previous
empty spaces between crystals favors a good sintering pro- acid dissolution step. If this process is not performed thor-
cess during the HPHT cycle, delivering a PCD with superior oughly, the diamond powder surface will be contaminated and
toughness and wear abrasion resistance. A lot of research and the sintering process will not be as effective, leading to PCD
development resources are dedicated to the development of performance and quality issues.
new diamond powder recipes with the objective of maximiz-
ing both wear abrasion and impact strength. NEXT INSTALLMENT
Part 2 of this series will present an extensive discussion of
Carbide interface. The interface between the sintered dia- PDC cutter leaching, including the advantages of leaching and
mond table (PCD) and the WC-Co substrate is a critical fea- how the effects of a leached diamond layer can be modeled.
ture of a shear cutter: Not only does it have to provide the nec- Also, the testing and qualification processes for PDC cutters
essary strength so the insert can manage the static and dynamic will be reviewed in depth, including both destructive and non-
shear loads that otherwise would cause the diamond table to destructive testing methods. WO
delaminate, but it also has to handle the residual stresses that
arise within both the substrate and the PCD as a consequence ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
of the HPHT sintering process. To accomplish this objective, The authors would like to thank Varel International for permission to publish
it is a common practice to design special non-planar interfaces this article series. Thanks also to Diamond Innovations, US Synthetic, Dennis
Tool, the Paris School of Mines, the University of Trento, Mike Reese, Crystal
(NPIs) that increase the amount of available carbide surface to Montanez and Brandi Williamson for their efforts in developing the series.
which the diamond table can attach. Residual stresses are gen-
erated during the sintering process—more specifically, during
the cooling stage when the PCD is already fully sintered. The THE AUTHORS
thermal expansion coefficient mismatch between the PCD Federico Bellin is a Senior Technology Engineer for Varel International.
layer and the substrate causes the carbide to shrink more than He has 12 years’ experience in PDC cutter and insert design and is highly
the top diamond table, forcing it to bend outward. experienced in HPHT technology. Mr. Bellin has worked both in Europe
and the US cooperating with R&D institutions worldwide to develop new
The tensile state of stress within the diamond becomes materials and new designs for ultra-HPHT systems. He earned a mas-
worse as its thickness increases, leading in some instances to ter’s degree in materials science in 1997 from the University of Trento,
a spontaneous delamination of the top layer. Extensive use Italy.
of finite-element analysis tools is required to simulate the re-
Alfazazi Dourfaye is the Manager of Technology Development for
sidual stresses’ field distribution for different combinations of Varel International. He has 20 years of experience in PDC cutter and
diamond layer thicknesses and different interface geometries. bit technology including testing development, bit applications and en-
It is a good practice to avoid the repetition of regular geomet- gineering, and software development. Dr. Dourfaye has developed a
ric patterns, and instead to resort to a random distribution of thermal mechanical model of PDC cutter wear and a simulator of PDC
bit performance monitoring with cutter wear. He graduated from the
geometric features with varying shapes and dimensions. Many Alès School of Mines in 1990 and earned his PhD at the Paris School
NPI designs have been tested over the years, and many varia- of Mines in 1995.
tions are available.
William King is the Director of Marketing and Intellectual Property for
Varel International. He has 29 years of experience in the drill bit industry,
Grit quality. Commercially available PCD material composi- including roles in design, product development, bit applications, interna-
tion is up to 98% diamond in volume, the balance being the tional sales, software development, marketing and intellectual property
catalyst metal that has infiltrated from the substrate. For this management. Mr. King is the inventor or co-inventor of 15 issued and
reason, the quality of the feedstock diamond powder quality five pending US patents. He attended the University of Illinois and the
University of Utah.
is of utmost importance in determining the final properties
and consistency of the sintered product. Usually, the micron- Mike Thigpen is a Senior Technology Engineer for Varel International.
ized diamond powder used in PCD manufacturing is a by- He has 26 years of experience in the oilfield service industry including
roles in design, product development, bit applications and engineering
product of the industrial diamond powder synthesis process, management. Mr. Thigpen is the inventor or co-inventor of nine issued
where crystals of at least 100-μm size are produced mainly for and two pending US patents. He earned a BS degree in mechanical en-
the stone cutting market (e.g., diamond saw blades, diamond gineering from the University of Houston in 1983.

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