DEVELOPMENT OF FUNCTIONAL PROTOTYPE OF STEEL PDC DRILL BIT BODY BY USING 3D PRINTING TECHNIQUE AND INVESTMENT CASTING

The project focuses on the fabrication of Polycrystalline Diamond Compact (PDC) drill bit prototype for industrial drilling testing to conform the previous study of the particular drill bit. The new designated drill bit had successfully shown an improvement rate of penetration through multi-layer formation by 58.33 % compared to the conventional drill bit based on Ansys simulation. Thus, further step is made to fabricate the design into functional prototype which can be used in industry drilling testing. Case history shows that almost all of the conventional PDC drill bit manufacturing contribute to a large number of waste materials, longer period of time, more motions and processes. The objective of this project is to investigate the application of new manufacturing ways to optimize the fabrication process of the new designated drill bit. An intensive study of manufacturing process and new technology was carried out and come out with the idea of rapid prototyping application (additive manufacturing) in the conventional PDC bit fabrication process. The project started with deciding on the rapid prototyping facilities available in UTP to make the sacrificial pattern of designated drill bit; in this case Thermojet 3D printer is chosen. The 3D CAD model of the PDC drill bit is sliced into 3 sections due to the oversize structure and redesign to have fittings before set for rapid prototyping