Active damping of self-excited torsional vibrations in oil well drillstrings

Abstract A drillstring used for the drilling of oil or gas wells behaves as a rotating torsional pendulum. The drillstring is rotated at a constant angular velocity by an electric motor, but exhibits superimposed torsional vibrations caused by a non-linear relationship between torque and angular velocity at the rock-crushing tool. The vibrations are self-excited, and disappear when the mean angular velocity of the pendulum is raised above a threshold value. An active damping system is described that strongly reduces the threshold value by using feedback control, thus extending the working range for vibration-free rotation. It operates at the current and the voltage of the electric motor, and can be implemented with only electrical components. The active damping system is interpreted as an extension of the passive tuned vibration absorber for quenching of self-excited vibrations in the form of a resilient foundation, as described by Tondl (1975Journal of Sound and Vibration42(2), 251–260). The concept of quenching self-excited vibrations by modifying the drive system as described in this paper is directly applicable to other engineering systems which are driven by a separately excited DC motor. Furthermore, the concept can be applied to systems driven by a hydraulic motor with a continuously variable flow rate.