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Transient Analysis of Rotary Drilling Rig in Response to Sudden Breaking of Wire

Rope for Drilling Pipe Lifting

Article · January 2017

DOI: 10.12783/dtetr/mdm2016/4950

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2016 International Conference on Mechanics Design, Manufacturing and Automation (MDM 2016)
ISBN: 978-1-60595-354-0

Transient Analysis of Rotary Drilling Rig in Response to Sudden

Breaking of Wire Rope for Drilling Pipe Lifting
Zhong-Hai ZHANG1,a, Jie ZHANG2, Ji-Guang ZHANG2, Yu SUN2,
Yao-Zhong CUI3, Cheng-Kun LI3, Li-Juan DONG3, Wen-Guang JIANG3,b
1School of Mechatronic Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology,
Xuzhou, Jiangsu, PR China
2Xuzhou XCMG Foundation Construction Machinery Co. Ltd., Xuzhou, Jiangsu, PR China
3School of Mechanical Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, Hebei, PR China
azhangzh@xcmg.com, bwgj@ysu.edu.cn

Keywords: Rotary drilling rig, Finite element analysis, Dynamic analysis, Machine design.

Abstract. Rotary drilling rig is a kind of construction machinery which is used for deep pile
foundation hole drilling operation. In recent years, a significant amount of catastrophic
plastic-hinge type bending failures have occurred in the masks of the drilling machines. The
major cause leading to this disaster is due to the sudden breaking of the drilling pipe lifting wire
rope. The drilling rig will experience a severe transient dynamic process immediately after the
accidental breaking of the lifting wire rope. The current design routine for drilling rigs is
normally based on static analyses only, and the dynamic processes have seldom been
considered due to the complexity involved in the analyses. In this paper, parametric finite
element model for the entire machine of the rotary drilling rig has been established. Transient
dynamic analyses have been carried out in response to the load case that the wire rope for
drilling pipe lifting breaks. The history of stress variation over the whole machine during the
dynamic response process has been obtained. This could be used to check if the machine
designed is safe in case the drilling pipe lifting wire rope breaks.

Introduction
Rotary drilling rig is a kind of pile drilling machinery which is suitable for deep-hole piling
in building foundations, and is also widely used in different foundation constructions. A typical
structure of a drilling rig is shown in Fig.1. It consists of chassis, slewing platform, lower boom,
upper boom, triangular frame, mast assemblies, drilling pipe, power head, drill, engine system,
cab, counterweight, hydraulic system and electrical system [1].
This type of rotary drilling rig uses the specially designed hydraulic telescopic crawler
chassis which is characterized with compact structure, good stability, and is able to work
smoothly and efficiently in a variety of complex and harsh conditions [2]. The slewing platform
located on the top of the chassis is used to support the working devices, power station and the
cab. A hydraulic motor enables the slewing platform to rotate full 360°. The luffing mechanism
is an important part of a rotary drilling rig. It consits of lower boom, upper boom, triangular
frame, mast leaning hydraulic cylinder and luffing mechanism hydraulic cylinder [4]. The
triangular frame, the lower boom and the upper boom constitute a parallelogram mechanism.
The triangular frame, the mast leaning hydraulic cylinder and the mast assemblies form a
triangle mechanism. The parallelogram mechanism makes it possible for the mast to move
forward and backward by extension or contraction of the mast leaning hydraulic cylinder, while
the triangle mechanism controls the mast leaning angle relative to the horizontal by adjusting
the extension of luffing mechanism hydraulic cylinder [5]. The drilling pipe assembly is
suspended by a wire rope from the main hoist, which serves the function to pull out the drilling
pipe after every drilling operation. The pulling force could be very high if the drilling head is
stuck underground. The mast assembly consists of four different smaller masts connecting one
by one to form a long vertical beam-like structure to hold the drill pipe in upright position. The
goose-head frame on top of the top mast serves as an important supporting part. There is a fixed
pulley on the goose-head frame. The drilling pipe assembly is pulled upward using the wire
rope over the pulley wheel during the lift-up operation. The power head is the major power
source for driving the rotation of the drilling pipe. The torque necessary for the drilling
operation is provided by the hydraulic motor inside the power head. A locking mechanism is
used to make sure that the power head and the drilling pipe are locked reliably so that they can
move together [6].

1. drilling head 2.mast I 3.power head 4.drilling pipe 5. mast III 6.rope 7.goose-head frame 8.
mast IV 9. mast II 10.trangular frame 11.upper boom 12.lower boom 13.slewing platform
14.chassis
Figure 1. Structure diagram of the rotary drilling rig.

In the actual drilling process, due to long hours heavy working load, the wire rope that pulls
the drill pipe is prone to break [7]. The sudden breaking of the wire rope will lead to a severe
transient dynamic vibration response of the whole machine. As the mast assembly is a very long
hollow section structure, the strain energy stored in the machine during the lift-up process of the
drilling pipe assembly will be mostly transformed into dynamic energy of the mast assembly.
This process usually causes the bending dominent type of vibration in the mast assembly. If the
stress rise in this dynamic pocess is too high, this may lead to mast destruction. Fig. 2 shows an
example of the plastic-hing type damage occurred in the mast of a newly designed drilling rig
caused by the sudden breaking of the lifting wire rope.
The current design routine for rotary drilling rigs is mostly based on static analyses. Simple
design rule for the dynamic behaviour is not available, thus could hardly be considered
quantitively. Instead, a rough empirical safety factor has usually been applied. As there are
numerous factors such as structure types, material combinations et al, which can vary, a simple
reliable safety factor is actually not available. With the development of modern computing
technology, quite accurate dynamic analyses for complex structures could be conducted [9].
Finite element analysis is the most widely accepted method to carry out dynamic analysis for
complex structures [10]. In this paper, parametric finite element model for the entire machine of
the rotary drilling rig has been established. Transient dynamic analyses have been carried out in
response to the load case that the wire rope for drilling pipe lifting breaks.

Figure 2. A case of mast damage caused by the breaking of lifting wire rope.

Finite Element Model

As the target of the present paper is to simulate the dynamic behavior of the whole machine,
the finite element model of the entire machine needs to be established. Even though most parts
of the machine are welded structures using steel plates, many researchers may naturally think
that the traditional plate/shell elements could be used to establish the model [8]. We should bear
in mind that the wall thicknesses of the parts are not very small relative to their structural
dimensions, therefore the hypothesis for traditional shell formulation is no longer valid and the
use of shell elements will not be able to produce accurate prediction results for this application.

Figure 3. The whole-machine finite element model for the rotary drilling rig.
 In order to achieve high modeling accuracy, full three-dimensional solid elements were used
for structural discretization [3].The lifting wire rope was simulated using tension only spar
elements. Fig. 3 shows the finite element mesh of the rotary drilling rig modeled. To make sure
that the finite element model established is correct, preliminary static analyses have been
carried out for typical working operation conditions and the predicted stress results have been
validated by experimental tests. Due to paper length restriction, the details will not be
presented.

Dynamic Analysis Results

The lifting wire rope is subject to maximum full tension load, and then this load is suddenly
released to simulate the sudden breaking of the rope. Fig.4 illustrates the loads and constraints
applied to the drilling rig finite element model. Fig.5 shows the rope tension load curve. There
are two load steps in this analysis process. During the first step (0~0.1s), a downward force of
36t was applied to the end of the main hoist rope. During the second step (0.1s~3s), the force
was released while the gravity remains. During this phase, the rig started to vibrate. Full
integration method has been used to solve the model.

Figure 4. Boundary condition and loading. Figure 5. load-time diagram for

lifting wire rope.
The analysis result shows that the dominate vibration mode of the rotary drilling rig caused
by the exitation of the breaking of the drilling pipe lifting wire rope is the plane vibration of the
mask assembly. Fig 6 shows the deformed shapes at two extreme vibration positions. The
period of the vibration is about 0.8s, and the maximum amplitude of the vibration occurs on the
goose head, which is 125.8mm, as shown in Fig. 6(a).
The peak stress occurred during the vibration process on mask II predicted by the model is
also found to locate at the same damage site as shown in the real case. The von Mises stress
history of a sample point chosen within this region (Fig. 7) is shown in Fig. 8. It can be seen
from this figure that the maximum stress occurred at the time of about 0.9 s of the analysis
process. At this moment, the von Mises distribution on the Mask II is also given in Fig. 9. It can
be seen that the maximum stress is 225 MPa. The material for Mast II is Q550. Its yield strength
is 550MPa. Therefore the safety factor for Mast II is 2.4, which is higher than the design safety
factor, which is usually chosen to be 2. This confirms that the new design is safe.
 (a) leftmost displacement (b) rightmost displacement
Figure 6. deformed shapes at two extreme amplitude positions.

Figure 7. location of stress sampling Figure 8. equivalent stress history of the

point of mast II. sampling point in mast II.

Figure 9. Sample equivalent stress contour plot of Mast II at the

moment the maximum stress occurs.
 Conclusions
In recent years, due to the accidental breaking of lifting wire rope, the cases of damages of
the mask structure of the rotary drilling rigs increase. This brings to the designers attention that
the traditional design procedure purely based on static analyses is not safe. The complex
dynamic processes could occur in the operation process should not be neglected. In this paper,
analysis of transient dynamic behaviour of the whole machine has been carried out using the
entire machine finite element model established. The analysis results showed good agreement
with the actural damage behaviour of the machine with regard to both the vibration mode and
the location likely to damage. The new machine designed based on the analysis presented in
this paper has safely run in the construction sites for over a year’s time. Furthermore, the finite
element model developed has been fully parameterized, it could be conviniently used as a
design tool to assist and further optimize the designs of the same series of products.

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