Analysis of API S-135 steel drill pipe cutting process by blowout preventer

In offshore oil exploration, the use of a Dynamic Positioning System (DPS) to maintain the platform at a fixed point regardless of the influence of the environment has become common practice. In the event of failure, however, the drill string inside BOP (BlowOut Preventer) must be cut and safely disconnected from the platform. Therefore, it is evident the need for an accurate and realistic virtual model of this failure process. Numerical model analysis, in addition to avoiding expensive and complex experimental tests, allows, through post-processing tools, a detailed understanding of all phases of the failure process. The present work aims to characterize the API S-135 steel, as material commonly used to manufacturing drill strings. The material parameters for the Johnson-Cook model (J-C) are obtained from experimental tensile tests on dog bone and 3-point bending beams specimens with different notch radii, covering a wide range of stress triaxialities. Experimental tests and numerical simulations were compared by means of stress-strain curves, Digital Image Correlation (DIC) and Surface Electron Microscopy (SEM) to validate the model. The material model is applied to simulate the pipe cutting process and to predict the required force for the BOP to cut drill pipes with different geometries, which in comparison to experimental tests permitted to determine BOP internal frictions. Additionally, the numerical simulation also allowed a better understanding of the cutting process here presented as well, coherent to J-C model and SEM imaging of a similar cut tube in BOP. •API S-135 steel plasticity and failure are modeled using Johnson-Cook models.•Materials parameters are measured and validated by experimental testing.•Relation between triaxiality and fractured surface profile is evidenced.•Numerical and experimental evidences indicate that failure at high triaxiality due to bending are found in pipe cutted by BOP.•BOP internal frictions are measured by comparing numerical and experimental pipe cutting forces.