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geoDrilling

INTERNATIONAL
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BOREHOLE SURVEYING
Swedish company Flexit AB had
in depth experience from day 1
here can be few companies that start
T up with as much experience as
Flexit, the Swedish manufacturer of
borehole surveying equipment.
Flexit’s founder, Claes Ericsson, has spent the
last 27 years pioneering such instruments as
Fotobor, EMS, EZ-Shot and the Maxibor.
His associates, Richard Parfitt, James
Tweedie, Richard Braithwaite & Ron Baron
have over 100 years between them designing,
building, testing, selling and troubleshooting
such tools. Since 1974, Claes and his team
can claim most of the “firsts” in borehole sur-
veying instruments.
For the five of them, much of this experi-
ence was through Claes' first company, Reflex
Instrument AB, working with the tools men-
tioned above. However development costs of
Maxibor in 1990 were such that Claes had to
pass control of Reflex Instrument to financial
backers. This saved the company, but Claes
quit in 1999 - to start all over again! This
time, he had in his mind a really smart instru-
ment.
Questions asked
At the conception stage of all such tools,
the question arises, “What does the client
want?” From these combined years of experi-
ence, the Flexit wish list went on and on!
“What shall we leave out?” was shorter. But
all this experience also gave them the answers
to other questions - “What has the client
always believed impossible?” and - “What has
the client no idea will be needed in the
future?”.
The Flexit SmartTool arrived on the mar-
ket in October 2000. It had many innovative
features and a price that cut 25% off existing
multi-shot instruments. But then it is a single-
shot as well. In fact SensIT, the electronic
probe, is the hub of three instruments that
differ only in their working software.
This lets Flexit sell each instrument at a
competitive price in its own market, and pro-
vide the customer with an unlock code to the
level that’s been paid. Upgrades can therefore
be made in the field. Pity now the rental cus-
tomer who discovers that the unlock code can
be made date sensitive. Failure to pay last
month’s rental charge in time, means that the
tool stops working! Well, it can be done that
way, but who would be so cruel?
The basic SingleSmart is an electronic sin-
gle-shot controlled from the StoreIT pocket
electronic data pad. This can store up to 890
sets of measurements (shots) together with
their time, date, hole reference and depth.
The next step up is the SingleSmart Series.
This lets you download any of those readings
to a PC. There you calculate a series of shots
into a borehole path and plot, tabulate, print,
SmartTool - an impressive
borehole survey system
with a host of advantages
for both operator and
customer
export, email ... the software is comprehen-
sive.
Top of the range is the MultiSmart. This
will survey your hole in one run! It can do
this in any direction, either into or out of,
as many holes as you wish. SensIT takes a
shot faster than the drill crew can break out
a rod thread. So, if you are using wireline,
run the survey during a rod trip out of the
hole and take a shot at every joint. It begins
to sound like an addict at play - and you
soon will be!
Whichever SmartTool you use, SensIT is
run inside a brass pressure barrel on at least 3
m of non-magnetic rods. It may be run out
below the bit when wireline drilling and will
pass through a BQ string. For AQ and con-
ventional drilling, SensIT is usually run on
the rods into open hole. Alternatively you
may run 6 m of non-magnetic rods above
your bit and land SensIT midway down. This
technique would apply for RAB and RC
drilling or in any directional drilling system.
For short blastholes, you hang the pressure
barrel on a soft rope and survey a bench of ten
holes in as many minutes. There is a wide
range of running gear available to suit all
applications.
Who is the client?
Before we can consider 'what the client
wants’, we must be sure we are addressing the
right group. The drilling contractor is hired to
drill a hole from the collar position, at this
dip angle and that azimuth. Presumably,
unless stated otherwise, the drillhole is meant
to go straight. Sometimes a cone of accuracy
or a limiting dip angle is specified. It should
be part of the drilling contractor's quality
assurance to his client to survey the hole to
prove that the job has been completed as spec-
Fig 1.
StoreIT
pocket
electronic
data pad
controls all
surveys,
stores single-
shot data and
downloads to
a PC by
radio.
ified. Of course the client may wish to be
involved with the results as well.
Flexit believe that the drilling contractor
should run the survey and therefore the tools
at the drill rig should be easy for the drill crew
to use. A SmartTool therefore has no cables,
plugs or batteries, no computers at the drill rig
and requires no initial orientation. The con-
troller for single- or multi-shot surveys, the
StoreIT pocket data pad, is in a watertight
case on a neck lanyard and has eight clearly
marked keys. The smallest of these is still big-
ger than a gloved finger! (See Fig. 1)
Once the survey has been run at the rig,
both client and contractor may separately
download StoreIT to their own PC. Here the
extensive software starts working on the data
to produce, as well as the survey in 3D co-
ordinates, some very useful other features.
(See Fig 3)
Quality Assurance? Under the heading
“What has the client always believed impossi-
ble?” comes the idea of quality assurance in a
borehole survey tool. If the tool is to measure
the dip and the azimuth of a borehole, then it
should be able to show that the measured
functions are undisturbed and that the sensors
are working correctly.
Fig.2. Random values of magnetic field and magnetic
dip, indicating casing and therefore unreliable
azimuths, are highlighted in yellow. Compare these
with the "white" values.
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BOREHOLE SURVEYING
3 x 1.5 m aluminium
spacer bars
Spear landing collar
Top sub assembly
The easiest error scenario to imagine is
movement of the SensIT probe whilst it takes
a reading. This might be linear, radial or rota-
tional movement in the hole. All are easily
picked up by the SensIT 3D accelerometer
that measures the gravity field strength in
three orthogonal directions. Normally these
are calculated into borehole dip and instru-
ment roll angle. They may also be resolved
into the total gravity field. If this is not exactly
1.00 g, then SensIT must be moving and
therefore both dip and azimuth at that station
could be unreliable. The software warns you
and suggests you delete the ‘shot’.
As will be clear by now, the SmartTool
measures the drillhole azimuth, relative to the
direction of magnetic north. Hence the need
for non-magnetic rods and keeping SensIT 3
m from any steel. From the team that devel-
oped the entirely non-magnetic Maxibor,
isn't this a backward step? Well Maxibor,
despite being the most accurate tool on the
market, is expensive, rather cumbersome and
needs special care with its set-up and centrali-
sation. It is also based on twelve-year-old
technology.
What has the client no idea will be needed in
the future? SmartTool incorporates a 3D mag-
netometer - a sort of spherical electronic com-
pass. This measures in the borehole the
strength, the horizontal azimuth and the dip
angle of the Earth’s magnetic field. Along
with borehole dip, the azimuth is essential for
the survey calculation but what about mag-
netic dip angle? Magnetic dip is the angle
made by the lines of magnetic field force with
the horizon. It tends towards 90° in polar
regions and is close to zero in equatorial areas;
it has nothing to do with latitude. In the UK
it is around 67°.
The natural values of magnetic field
strength and magnetic dip are known for all
points on the earth’s surface. So is the natural
magnetic variation - the constant used to cor-
rect the magnetic azimuth to true grid North.
So if SensIT measures anything different from
these known values, it warns that there is
some magnetic disturbance and that the mea-
sured borehole azimuth is unreliable. We can-
not yet, therefore, put our hole path onto the
grid map.(See Fig.2).
Help is close at hand. In place of these
unreliable azimuths, the software lets you
enter a “manual” azimuth based on the
nearest good ones above and below the dis-
turbance. Since SmartTool’s survey speed
SensIT radio antenna
Totally sealed SensIT
probe inside
pressure barrel
has enabled you to take rather closely spaced
‘shots’ - 3, 6 or 9 m, it is usually quite sim-
ple to change the unreliable shots with suffi-
cient accuracy. A little practice is required
but with experience this is a most useful fea-
ture that will appeal to many drillhole sur-
veyors.
In magnetised mineralisation, there are
often “clean” breaks between disturbances.
The SmartTool system immediately identifies
these breaks for you and as long as some of
them coincide with a “shot”, the survey is
back on track. By the nature of exploration,
most mineralisation occurs only towards the
end of a hole. In either case, any short loss of
precise azimuth will have only a limited effect
on the calculated drillhole path.
In trials, the MultiSmart survey on a 390
m hole with an 85 m cased section to upset it,
compared closely to that of a gyro.
This magnetic integrity check or MagIC
test, as Flexit has dubbed it, is a great step for-
ward. In many instances it lets you use
MultiSmart where previously no magnetic
tool would have been considered. It is not,
however, a cure all - massive magnetite that
covers 50% of the hole or production coring
in iron ore - are still the domain of Maxibor or
a gyro.
You need to know your position, not the direc-
tion that you’re heading! One of the most diffi-
cult things to do, in the light of new
technology, is to change people's habits.
Flexit’s founder, Claes Ericsson.
Bottom sub with
shock assembly
Running gear
Historically, the single-shot has always been
the tool for surveying a borehole. It was sim-
pler, cheaper to buy and easier to run than any
multi-shot. But excellent tools, such as the
mechanical Tropari or the film based
Eastman or PeeWee cameras, were very time
costly to run. For this reason shots were taken
at wide intervals, 25 or 50 m apart or even
“half way down and at the end” and therefore
told you nothing about the position of your
hole. Recording dip and, if you were lucky,
azimuth at such long intervals is a waste of
time. It only serves as something with which
to criticise the drill crew!
Electronic multi-shots change all that. The
price has come down and the shot rate
increased from every 1 - 2 minutes to 5 sec-
onds. You run them while tripping the pipe
for a bit change so survey downtime is virtu-
ally eliminated. With computers, the resolu-
tion from dip and azimuth to 3D co-ordinates
is instant and it is this position of the ore
intersection that you want - not the direction
the hole was going. Only then, with posi-
tional data from intersections in other holes,
can the geologist begin to build an accurate
orebody model.
Getting a bend on
One place where single-shots are still
essential is for directional drilling. This may
involve taking action to keep a hole straight,
to redirect a hole to reach a ‘hidden’ target or
to intersect mineralisation at a better angle.
Here the single-shot must be run regularly at
close intervals and both position and direc-
tion are essential. Only then may corrective
action be taken before any deviation becomes
too big.
As well as measuring hole dip and azimuth,
SingleSmart records gravity roll angle and
magnetic toolface angle. These two parame-
ters are essential for orientating wedges or
steering motors, such as Navi-Drill, in both
inclined and vertical holes. The running gear
available includes a range of mule-shoes and
orientation bull plugs - once again the lan-
guage takes on meanings from a different
world! But if you are struggling to discern a
minutely changing azimuth from a series of
film shots, then you are in “paradise”with
SingleSmart's digital output to 0.1 of a
degree!
Two items in the SmartTool’s considerable
armoury were each designed by Flexit for one
client. One is a Swedish Government organi-
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BOREHOLE SURVEYING
Fig 3. A plan view of 20 inclined 18 m blastholes.
The dotted paths are the straight collar extensions.
Plots in red show where deviation has brought a hole
too close to a neighbour.
sation that likes all measurements to four
places of decimals. To express azimuth or
dip in this way confers upon them an accu-
racy to which even SmartTool cannot aspire.
The software warns you of this. Has any-
body told their driller about his depth mea-
surements?
The other is a drilling contractor that spe-
cialises in directional drilling. They like to
take up to eight “cluster” readings of dip and
azimuth at each station, rotating the drill
pipe 45° each time. The software then aver-
ages the directions at each station before
Fig 4. SmartTool's borehole spacing warning system.
Used for any multiple hole project such as drill and
blast, grout curtains or ground anchors.
Reprinted from geoDrilling International, March 2002
making the path calculation. This is serious
stuff and an indication of what might be in
the future. Flexit has made it simple for less
enthusiastic operators to disable these func-
tions.
What shall we leave out?
In the introduction, reference was made to
“what was going to be left out” from
SmartTool’s specification. The list is not,
after all, quite so short.
Going electronic gets rid of films, chemi-
cals, fragile mechanisms, eyeglasses and
guesswork. However it would normally
introduce cables, plugs, batteries, chargers
and computers. FlexIT has scrapped all of
these as well and limited computers to the
office.
SmartTool uses a fast radio link for com-
munications between SensIT, StoreIT and
your PC. This is seamless, completely auto-
matic and limited to a 10 m line-of-sight
range. As soon as you remove SensIT from its
pressure barrel, the readings download and
appear on the StoreIT display. For download-
ing from StoreIT to the PC, a small antenna is
fitted to the PC serial socket.
The power supply in SensIT and StoreIT
are rated to give up to ten years use in single-
shot mode - somewhat less as a multi-shot,
depending upon usage. This is a reflection of
the advances made in the electronics industry
over the past few years on component power
reduction. The nearest competitor’s elec-
tronic multi-shot has a battery life of 10 h.
The seals on SensIT and StoreIT keep out
mud and water; their construction eliminates
spares and consumables. You only have to
keep them clean.
The biggest item left out is “surveying
time”. This is particularly true in the wireline
multi-shot where the survey is carried out
while the rods are recovered at the end of the
hole. The only time cost is running the tool
on the overshot, releasing and recovering the
wire. If you are drilling conventionally, the
time cost is one extra trip with the pipe but
instead of waiting up to a minute for each
shot, the crew may work without stopping
and still take a shot every 3 m.
For blastholes, MultiSmart has surveyed 58
x 18 m holes at 2 m intervals in just over two
hours. On a dam project, SingleSmart
checked 72 x 10 m vertical holes for tie bars in
under an hour.
The final question?
Claes and his team have produced an
impressive survey system, with a host of
advantages for both operator and customer.
SmartTool, of course, still has to compete
against Claes’ earlier inventions at Reflex
Instrument AB. However, most of the distrib-
utors Claes had established round the world
over the past 25 years have now joined him
under the Flexit banner. Claes Ericsson was
one of the first in the mining industry to open
a website back in 1993. Today’s Flexit site
<www.flexit.se> has all the usual features but
adds free “test ‘n drive” software and an
online shop where you can generate your own
quotation or purchase order.
Flexit has entered the market at a particu-
larly difficult time for both mining and con-
struction. By the end of 2001, however, 65
SmartTool systems had been sold in 20 coun-
tries - many clients have bought two or more
instruments. After extensive repeatability tri-
als alongside gyro tools in Chile, the mining
company, Codelco has recently approved
SmartTool for use on surface and under-
ground. Further information is obtainable-
from:
UK Representative: Richard Braithwaite,
Encore Borehole Surveys. Tel/fax: +44 (0)
1546 870676. E-mail: encore@ndirect.co.uk
Ron Baron, Market Support, Flexit, Box
1074, SE-186 26 Vallentuna, Sweden. Tel:
+46 (0)8 514 303 62, Fax: +46 (0)8 514 303
63, Email: info@flexit.se Website:
www.flexit.se