The chaotic dynamics of drilling

In the study of drilling dynamics, many investigations are limited to laboratory systems and simple mathematical models. Using field measurement data and a new dynamical model in a rotary steerable drilling system, we demonstrate the existence of low-dimensional chaos in drilling. The behaviors of the mathematical model and actual measurement are shown to be consistent. The revealing of chaos provides a new way to detect early fatigue cracks as weak signals in a noisy environment to reduce engineering cost and the possibility of disaster.