Engineering Application of Hardbanding Technology in the Petroleum Industry

The petroleum industry is essential for supplying crude oil, which is vital for fuel and chemicals and drives substantial investments in technologies, especially in regard to increasing the durability of the drill strings used in wellbore construction. This study aims to establish and to validate a hardbanding technology for reconditioning NC50 tool joints subjected to wear, thereby increasing drill pipe durability and reducing the risk of failure during drilling, which can lead to ecological pollution, human safety issues, and financial costs. The hardbanding of the tool joints was carried out using the gas metal arc welding process (GMAW) with two different wear-resistant wires, ARNCO 100XT and FLUXOFIL M58. The equipment designed for this research allowed for the application of high-quality hardbanding layers in very good condition, according to the favorable results obtained by macroscopic analyses, metallographic studies and hardness measurements. The hardbanding procedure of the tool joint drill pipe was documented in a welding procedure specification (WPS), which validates the process and is useful for operators, drilling companies and other oilfield service companies who wish to apply under the same conditions and at the same high-quality level, in a repetitive mode, the reconditioning process to minimize the risk of drill-string failures.