Using Raman shift and FT-IR spectra as quality indices of oil bit PDC cutters

Nowadays many of oil and gas wells are drilled extensively by Polycrystalline Diamond Compact (PDC) drill bits. Various companies are manufacturing PDC cutters according to their usage. All of these companies concentrate their products of PDC cutters to be well resisting for abrasive wear. The wear of PDC inserts leads to money loss as well as delays the drilling procedures causing unexpected dilemmas. Therefore, it is crucially significant to evaluate the quality of the PDC cutters based on their resistance against abrasive wear. The present work concentrates on assessing the PDC cutters from various sources using two non-destructive analytical approaches: Raman-Shift and Fourier Transformation Infrared Ray (FT-IR) spectra. The analysis of the PDC samples with the analytical techniques were validated with the previous experimental results obtained from micro and nano-scratch tests achieved on the same specimens. The presented work could be performed on many PDC cutters from various manufacturers as the applied tests considered non-destructive compared to the traditional destructive techniques which leads the way for evaluating lots of PDC cutters without causing any damage. The analysis of the applied analytical approaches agreed with the results obtained from previous experimental scratch tests.