HOVE TECHNOLOGY CENTRE, ST JOSEPHS CLOSE, BRIGHTON AND HOVE BN3 7ES

EAST SUSSEX, TEL (+44) 1273 735500, FAX (+44) 1273 735511

TECHNICAL BULLETIN

In the interest of getting everyone on the same page, please read the following information on borehole
curvature.

Dog Leg Severity

Dog Leg Severity is defined in API D20 as “A measure of the amount of change in the inclination
and/or direction of a borehole. Usually expressed in degrees per 100 feet of course length.” It is
common to use the metric near-equivalent of the change of the total angle per 30 m. Severe dog legs
can lead to:

• Failure of the drill pipe in fatigue – API has published methods for determining “safe” doglegs
expressed in terms of the severity of the dogleg in degrees/100 ft
• Excessive wear of the drill pipe where high lateral forces act on the wall of the hole
• High lateral forces produce high torque which loads the drill pipe and drilling rig
• High lateral loading of reaming tools causing structural failures
• High lateral loads on reaming tools leads to high wear
• High lateral loads on reaming tools introduce high torque on the tools, the drill pipe driving the
tools, and the drilling rig
• Jamming of down hole tooling

The calculation method is in Para. 3.2.3. with the equation:

DLS = (100/∆MD cos¯¹ (cos∆I – (sinI sinI2) (1 – cos ∆A)

Where: DLS = Dogleg severity, degrees/100 ft.

A = Azimuth direction angle, degrees
I = Inclination angle, degrees
MD = Measured depth, ft.
∆ = Change between survey stations
1, 2 = Subscripts to denote survey stations

3-Joint Radius – A “Rule of Thumb” for Pullback

Pilot hole drilling can rarely be accurate enough to obtain an exact design radius. Therefore for
pullback and pipe stress considerations, it is common in the HDD industry to make the radius
calculation over three drill joints (approximately every 27-20 m).

Therefore, I recommend you consider using the following analysis to calculate each 3-Joint radius:

R = 57.3(L/A)
Where: R = Radius of curvature in the drilled hole (m.)
L = Drilled length over three joints (m.)
A = Total angle change (degrees) and;

A = cos¯¹(cos(i3 – i0) – ((sin(i3))(sin(i0))(1 – cos(a3 – a0))

Where: i3, i0 = inclination readings at the beginning and end of any three joint section
a3, a0 = azimuth readings at the beginning and end of any three joint section

Regards,

Craig Rowney