Abstract:With the establishment and development of New China, China’s exploration engineering has grown from nothing, from small to large, from weak to strong. Through the persistence and hard work of several generations of prospectors, the geological drilling technological level in China has basically kept pace with the world, reaching the world advanced level in many aspects in the past 70 years. And some drilling technology and equipment are in the leading position in the world. During the celebration of the 70th anniversary of New China founding, the development of exploration engineering in China is summarized from the perspective of the whole geological industry and even the whole national industrial development in the past 70 years, which can be roughly divided into fourperiods: The initial period of the exploration engineering in the early founding days of New China (1950s to 1960s); The steady and rapid development period of exploration engineering (1970s to 1980s); Expanding service area period of exploration engineering (roughly the last 15 years of the 20th century); Comprehensive and in-depth development period of exploration engineering, gradually entering the world-class stage (since the 21st century). The paper review and summarize the major events and main technical achievements in these four stages respectively, and illuminate the important contributions made by exploration engineering to national economic construction and China’s being the unique country with the most complete manufacturing system in the world up to now. Looking forward to developing prospects of drilling engineering in deep earth detection, ocean drilling, polar drilling, exploration of hydrate and dry hot rock new energy, environment engineering etc, as well as drilling intellectualization, etc.

Abstract:Environment friendly water-based drilling fluids will become a development direction to meet the requirements of the national ecological civilization construction and green exploration and development. With increase in drilling depth, the formation temperature becomes higher and higher; therefore, higher requirement is placed on the temperature resistance of environment friendly drilling fluids. In this paper, the new progresses on high temperature resistant, environment friendly water-based drilling fluids at home and abroad are introduced, including high performance water-based drilling fluid, formate drilling fluid, organic salt drilling fluid, polymeric alcohol drilling fluid, silicate drilling fluid, methyl glucoside drilling fluid. The shortcomings of the existing high temperature resistant, environment friendly water-based drilling fluid system are summarized, and the development trend of high temperature resistant, environment friendly water-based drilling fluids is analyzed.

Abstract:The Chuzhou salt-cavern gas storage facilities is supporting gas storage for Sino Russian East Line; thus, it is of great construction significance. During the drilling operation in the Chuzhou area, the upper Dongtai and Yancheng formations are prone to leak, and the clay is prone to make slurry. The salt formations in the lower Pukou formation are prone to erode, expand and collapse. Drilling fluid technology for different well sections was used according to stratum characteristics and construction difficulties in the Chuzhou area. The polymer drilling fluid was used to prevent surface leakage and collapse in the first well section. The salt water polymer drilling fluid was used to prevent shrinkage and gypsum invasion in the upper part of the second section and the saturated brine polymer drilling fluid was used to prevent salt dissolving in the salt layer section. The above drilling fluid technology has been verified by 3 wells in the field. The drilling process of the 3 wells was smooth, the well diameter was regular, no downhole complications occurred, the quality of the well was high, and the coring rate of the salt layer was above 99%. The drilling fluid technology can provide good guidance for drilling of gas storage wells.

Abstract:There are a large number of mudstone strata in the Wulonggou mining area of Qinghai Province, which are characterized by high total clay content, ease to expand after absorbing water, and many micro-cracks in the strata. In the process of drilling, problems such as hole shrinkage, collapse and insufficient core recovery are easy to occur, which seriously affects the evaluation of the scale and economic value of the ore body. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the drilling fluid suitable for this area. A water-based drilling fluid suitable for mudstone formation has been developed through the orthogonal experiment. The drilling fluid formula was: 5% bentonite + 2% soda ash (Na2CO3) + 0.05% highly viscous polyanionic cellulose (HV-PAC) + 0.4% low viscous sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (LV-CMC) + 2% sulfomethyl phenolic resin (SMP-1) + 2.5% non-fluorescence anti-sloughing lubricant (FT-342) + 0.4% MMH (MMH) + 1% white oil. The drilling fluid had water loss of 4mL, and the expansion rate of mudstone was reduced to 3.02% in the drilling fluid, whereas it is 20.26% in clean water. The mudstone structure remained intact after soaking in the drilling fluid for 24h. The drilling fluid has the advantages of low filtration, strong inhibition and simple preparation process, which can be well applied to drilling of mudstone strata in the Wulonggou area.

Abstract:Groundwater monitoring wells are public welfare permanent infrastructure for groundwater monitoring, and construction quality directly determines its performance in the later period. Groundwater monitoring stations in Henan are mainly distributed in Huanghuai Plain, Nanyang Basin, Luoyang Basin, and Lingsan Basin. The types of groundwater to be monitored are mainly pore water, followed by bedrock fissure water and karst water. According to the characteristics and geological conditions of the monitoring wells, drilling processes such as pump suction reverse circulation, direct rotary drilling, percussive drilling, and air down-hole-hammer drilling are adopted. The article analyzes the characteristics and field performance of each process, which can be used as reference for similar projects.

Abstract:The formation encountered in drilling the potassium geological scientific drilling borehole LDK02 in deep Lop Nur Salt Lake was mainly the Quaternary loose overburden, where bit burial was prone to happen due to borehole collapse in gravel, and bit sticking due to borehole contraction in clay, resulting in the hole wall extremely unstable and accidents easy to occur during drilling. Brine used to prepare the drilling fluid on-site had a significant influence on the performance of the additives of the drilling fluid, resulting in many problems of the drilling fluid, such as poor colloidal stability, easy sedimentation and delamination, ineffectively carrying and removing cuttings. To deal with the above problems, the ionic composition analysis was carried out on the on-site brine, and the additives with good salt resistance was selected to make brine based drilling fluid, which was applied in drilling the borehole LDK02 with good results, ensuring the smooth implementation of the drilling work.

Abstract:The No. 2 multi-branch horizontal well drilled from surface in Jiexiu Xinyugou Coal Mine, Shanxi, is a grouting hole where grouting technology is used to block the supply and replenishment passage of the Ordovician karst water. The actual drilling amount of the hole is 2194.86m, of which the vertical section is 490.27m, and the horizontal section 1704.59m. This paper introduces in detail of the main equipment, drilling fluid and drilling technology of the grouting hole, etc., and summarizes the difficulties and experience in drilling, which can provide reference for similar engineering construction.

Abstract:With the continuous development and improvement of horizontal well intersection drilling technology, it has been used in various fields, especially in salt brine mining wells. In the context of workover and drilling of the well pair of Well Y10 and Well Y9 in Ningjin Rock-salt Field, this paper systematically summarizes the well structure, drilling tool assembly, drilling fluid formulation, drilling parameters and drilling process, which provides valuable geological basis and practical experience for brine exploitation in this area.

Abstract:The preliminary survey hole for the geothermal resource feasibility preliminary survey project in the Shilipu area of Xiangning County, Shanxi Province, was forced to change the hole structure due to the complex situation of the deep hole section, which made the original φ152mm oil drilling swivel-type double-tube core drilling tool useless. As a result, a φ131/79mm swivel-type double-tube core drilling tool has been developed. On the basis of analysis of the mechanical properties of the core drilling string, with field use of the drilling tool, adjustment of equipment parameters, and improvement of the drilling tool water passages and other deep hole core drilling aspects, good effect was achieved in continuous coring through the whole Ordovician and the underlying Cambrian layers. In this paper, the actual coring performance of the special core drilling tool in the deep hole section is also statistically analyzed and summarized.

Abstract:Environmental quality is closely related to the quality of life and the environmental drilling rig plays an indispensable role in environmental quality testing. This paper reviews the working principle and development process of the direct push, sonic vibration and rotary environmental sampling drilling rig with summarization of the gap between domestic and foreign drilling rigs in intelligence, compact structure and appearance, and presents that the key capabilities of environmental sampling rigs include mobility, drilling capacity and sample fidelity-keeping ability. Finally, it is pointed out that the environmental sampling rig will develop towards the direction of using clean energy, automatically analyzing samples and adapting to various situations.

Abstract:The drilling rig does not run smoothly because of serious hydraulic shock when the hoisting system starts and closes. The main reason of hydraulic shock is that when the reversing valve is opened and closed, the kinetic energy of hydraulic oil and load is converted into pressure energy instantly. In this paper, the impact of hydraulic shock is reduced by improving the circuit of the hoisting hydraulic system and selecting a reasonable lifting speed. Theoretical and AMESim modeling and simulation of the hoisting hydraulic system befero and after improvement indicates that the improved hydraulic system has obvious control over hydraulic shock, and the system stability is greatly improved. After reforming the hoisting system of the drilling rig, hydraulic shock disappeared during stepping up, and vibration of the drilling rig was greatly reduced with stability enhanced.

Abstract:The ROCK-600 portable drilling rig is suitable for geological exploration. It can be used for a variety of core drilling methods such as diamond wireline coring. Taking the drilling work in the Guanyinyu mining area of Xiaoqinling Goldfield, Henan Province as an example, the use of the ROCK-600 drilling rig is introduced. The paper is focused on the proper selection of technical parameters such as mud pump pressure, rotary speed, pump volume, according to the formation conditions and drilling design requirements of the mining area. Meanwhile, a few suggestions for the improvement of the portable drilling rig are proposed, so that it can play a greater role in exploration in different mining areas.

Abstract:The different surface dig angle is one of the reasons for the biased tunnel. Due to the surface asymmetry, the force on the two sides of the tunnel is different from each other, leading to damage to the lining of the tunnel. The finite element analysis was used to study different surface dig angles, the deformation process around the tunnel and the distribution characteristics of tunnel bolts and the plastic zone. When the surface dig angle is greater than 30°, the tunnel is clearly affected by biased pressures and the plastic zone on the deeper side is enlarged, which can provide some theoretical basis and construction suggestions for the tunnel design under the topographic biased pressure.

Abstract:The 3000m drilling project undertaken by the Sixth Geological and Mineral Exploration Institute of Shandong Province in Shuiwangzhuang, Zhaoyuan is the deepest hole in Zhaoping Fault Zone with the completion depth at 3000.58m, operation period of 232 days, and a record in the drilling efficiency for the similar holes in small diameter wireline drilling. In this paper, the project schedule management is taken as the research topic, and the various aspects of the drilling process are deeply analyzed in the preliminary design. WBS was used to break down the work to find out the main aspects that affect the progress of the project with the import buffer set up. The key chain technology was used to optimize the drilling progress and achieved good results. The key chain technology enables project managers to have a dynamic and real-time control of the entire project, which is of great significance to deep hole drilling and large-scale drilling works.