SPOT™
PDC Cutting Structure Design, Drilling Simulation and Wear Analysis
SPOT is Varel’s proprietary cutting structure design, drilling simulation and wear analysis software. From its first iteration in 1995, SPOT has been under steady development leading to the current version.
Beginning with single cutter testing and cutter rock interaction models the project progressed to force modeling and vibration analysis. An earlier version of SPOT introduced the ability to model bit behavior during directional drilling with positive displacement motors or rotary steerable systems. At this point it had become a very useful cutting structure design system capable of advanced force balancing for bit optimization.
The current version of SPOT models bit behavior over time in terms of cutter wear and / or deterioration through impact, friction, and heat transfer. The software pulls input from GeoScience as a starting point for cutting structure design. Once a design iteration has been created the tool can be run as a full drilling simulator. It incorporates a multivariate optimizer that can perform sensitivity analysis studies under differing operating parameters to fully understand the best match of bit and drilling operations to the rock column to be drilled.
The output from SPOT ports directly into Varel’s enhanced Pro-Engineer CAD system.
