Titanium-Drillpipe
Development for
Short-Radius Drilling
Successful development of titanium-
drillpipe assemblies for short-radius
drilling included appropriate condi-
tioning of the outer-diameter (OD)
and inner-diameter (ID) pipe-body
surfaces to maximize fatigue life,
optimizing the pipe-end upsetting
procedure, establishing the tool-
joint-to-pipe attachment method,
and designing and testing a high-
integrity tool joint and tool-joint-to-
pipe connection for optimum
fatigue performance. The full-length
paper provides an overview of these
developments and the laboratory-
test results used to establish critical
performance behavior and require-
ments for 2.875-in.-OD titanium
drillpipe for short-radius drilling.
Introduction
Tu b u l a r U p d a t e
There is a need for drillpipe that offers
improved reliability and extended life
in re-entry-drilling programs where
radius of curvature is less than 60 ft.
Steel, aluminum, and composite
drillpipe traditionally used in these
short-radius-drilling operations often
have shortened lives because of
fatigue, wear, and physical damage.
Titanium has five attributes that make
it an attractive alternative to steel for
short-radius drilling.
With a 0.160-lbm/in.3 density,
titanium is 43% lighter than steel.
Titanium has a 17106-psi elastic
modulus, which is 57% as stiff as
steel.
Titanium is more corrosion and
erosion resistant than steel.
Titanium is not susceptible to cor-
rosion fatigue.
With a 120,000-psi yield strength,
titanium has a strength-to-weight
ratio 1.54 times that of S-135 steel.
This article is a synopsis of paper SPE
59140, Development of Titanium
Drillpipe for Short-Radius Drilling, by
J.E. Smith, SPE, Grant Prideco; R.W.
Schutz, RTI Energy Systems Inc.; and
E.I. Bailey, SPE, Stress Engineering
Services, originally presented at the
2000 IADC/SPE Drilling Conference,
New Orleans, 2325 February.
50
The low elastic modulus is the pri-
mary characteristic that makes titani-
um desirable because the industry
wants drillpipe that can drill through
a radius of curvature of 50 ft or less
and have a service life greater than
500,000 cycles. Laboratory testing
has confirmed that titanium has a
fatigue life more than ten times that
of steel for cyclic stresses from
30,000 to 40,000 psi. Because titani-
um costs considerably more than
steel, its fatigue life and enhanced
capabilities must make it more cost-
effective than steel.
Design Parameters
The drillpipe assembly consisted of
pipe body, tool joints, and tool-joint-
to-pipe-body interfaces. The titanium
pipe body with a nominal 120,000-psi
yield strength had tensile and torsion-
al strengths between those of
American Petroleum Inst. (API)
grades G-105 and S-135 drillpipe of
the same size. The tool joint had ten-
sile and torsional strengths much less
than those of the pipe body, which is
not uncommon for small-diameter-
pipe and -tool-joint combinations.
The FR26-tool-joint thread form was
chosen, even though other thread
forms with higher torsional strengths
were available, because it had a signif-
icantly improved fatigue life.
Titanium-Alloy Pipe Body
A development program was under-
taken in late 1996 to develop titanium
drillpipe for short-radius-drilling
applications. The pipe size selected
for this development was 2.875-in.
OD2.151-in. ID with 3.625-in.-
OD1.75-in.-ID FR26 tool joints. A
Ti-6Al-4V alloy pipe body was chosen
on the basis of its high tensile and
fatigue strengths, low elastic modulus,
good corrosion resistance, ready com-
mercial availability, and low cost com-
pared with other titanium alloys. As
the workhorse titanium alloy for the
aerospace industry, its metallurgy and
physical properties are well docu-
mented and fabrication methods are
well established. Ti-6Al-4V alloy
products can be hot forged, machined,
and welded readily and are produced
commercially in seamless tubular-
product forms.
The 30-ft-long, 2.875-in.-OD
0.362-in.-wall thickness, seamless
pipe stock qualified in this drillpipe
program exhibited mechanical and
physical properties listed in Table 3 in
the full-length paper. The high ulti-
mate strength of this alloy corre-
sponds to a high S-N fatigue strength,
such that the endurance limit in fully
reversed bending is typically 50% of
the ultimate-strength value on
smooth surfaces. Because this
endurance limit is not affected by cor-
rosion-fatigue degradation, this titani-
um pipe can be expected to provide
long fatigue life at high stress levels in
all drilling and well-fluid environ-
ments. Although Ti-6Al-4V tubulars
can be produced by hot rolling (e.g.,
rotary-pierced) or extrusion, the hot-
rolling process was selected because it
provided a lower-cost, higher-yield-
ing, higher-production-rate method
for producing large lots of thin-wall
titanium-alloy pipe in all standard API
sizes and Range 2 or 3 lengths.
OD- and ID-surface conditions of
the drillpipe body are one key to
achieving extended S-N fatigue life in
short-radius drilling. Because titani-
um-alloy pipe is produced on hot-
rolling mills in air at temperatures
exceeding 1,700F, substantial oxide
scale and diffused-in interstitial (e.g.,
oxygen) surface layers (e.g., alpha
case) can be expected to form on as-
rolled pipe. These hard surface layers
are very brittle and highly susceptible
to fatigue crack initiation. Ex-
perience has shown that incomplete
hardened-alpha-case removal can
diminish high-cycle S-N fatigue life
by factors of 5 to 10. Adequate sur-
face conditioning of the titanium
pipe for this application requires
total removal of oxygen-enriched ID-
and OD-surface layers.
Tool Joints
Tool joints used on the pipe were
3.625-in.-OD1.75-in.-ID FR26
MAY 2000

Titanium
Copper Ring
Internal Upset
External Upset
Fig. 1Cross-sectional view of tool-joint/titanium-pipe connection.
rotary-shouldered connections. Steel
was selected as the tool-joint material
instead of titanium to avoid potential
galling problems. The tool joint was
attached to the pipe with an interfer-
ence-fit threaded connection. The
FR26 is a single-shoulder tool joint
with fatigue-resistant features. The
Tu b u l a r U p d a t e
most likely location for fatigue failure
in the tool joint is in the last engaged
pin thread. To improve its fatigue
resistance, the pin was machined
with a stress-relief groove and an
enlarged root radius and was cut on a
taper different from its API counter-
part. The diameter of the stress-relief
groove is slightly larger than the
diameter of the root of the last
engaged thread to maintain the ten-
sile area of the pin.
Tool-Joint-To-Pipe Connection
It was important that the connection
between tool joint and pipe body not
be the weak link in the assembly in
tension, torsion, or bending and that
it have good fatigue resistance. The
shrink-fit connection relies on a tight
fit between the tool joint and the
pipe. Torsional and tensile strength
are strongly dependent on the grip-
ping forces resulting from the inter-
ference fit. However, as gripping force
is increased by increasing interfer-
ence, radial stresses within the pipe
and tool joint that affect their fatigue
resistance also are increased. The
integrity and performance of the con-
nection depend on frictional torque
resulting from interference fit, total
interference between pipe and tool
joint, radial stresses in pipe and tool
52
Tool Joint
installed in the tool joint. Addition of
joint, and contact diameter of the
pipe and tool joint.
Coefficient of Friction. The tool
joint was attached to the titanium
tube with a threaded connection
with tapered threads and a cylindri-
cal section for additional support.
Knowledge of the coefficient of
friction between the titanium and
steel components at expected bear-
ing pressures was necessary to calcu-
late yield torque for this connection.
A test process was developed to
determine coefficient of friction
between titanium and steel. Use of
epoxy glue to secure the tool joint to
the pipe was examined as an alterna-
tive to friction gripping, but shear
strength of epoxy glue was not con-
sidered sufficiently high to provide
necessary torsional strength for
the connection.
Thermal-Expansion Character-
istics. To expand the steel tool joint
adequately and achieve the proper
interference fit after cooling, it was
essential that accurate thermal-
expansion-coefficient values be
known for both tool-joint steel and
pipe titanium alloy. Because there
were significant differences in the val-
ues in the literature for these, direct
measurements were made on the
actual components. Finite-element
analysis (FEA) showed that hoop
stresses in the tool joint and radial
stress in the tube were within work-
able limits even when the tool-joint
assembly temperature was maxi-
mized and the hot clearance between
the tool joint and threaded tube
was minimized.
Copper Insert. Some initial fatigue
tests conducted on nonupset pipe
indicated that pipe fatigue life at the
tool joint was very low and would not
be acceptable in service even with
upset pipe. Differences in elastic mod-
ulus between titanium and steel
allowed relative movement between
titanium and steel at the end of the
tool joint where bending stresses were
maximum, leading to fretting fatigue
and short life. A copper ring that acted
as a solid lubricant (Fig. 1) and
allowed the titanium to move axially
with respect to the tool joint was
the copper insert eliminated fatigue
failures at that location.
Upset Design. On the basis of stress-
es identified by FEA within the
shrink-fit-connection zone, thicken-
ing the pipe-end walls was essential
to achieve high tool-joint-connection
integrity. A tapered pipe-wall transi-
tion also was considered critical to
reduce and distribute bending
stresses at the tool-joint-to-pipe
interface to enhance fatigue perfor-
mance. FEA showed that a pipe-end-
wall-thickness increase of approxi-
mately two times could safely handle
anticipated connection-makeup and
service stresses after required pipe-
end machining.
Fig. 1 shows a cross section of the
chosen pipe-end upset configuration.
This configuration includes heavy ID
reinforcement (i.e., internal upset)
and a minor increase in OD. FEA and
cantilever fatigue testing also showed
that a gentle, straight taper transition
to the nonupset pipe was favorable for
high fatigue performance. Because
procedures for upsetting thin-wall.
2.875-in.-OD Ti-6Al-4V alloy pipe
were not established, it was necessary
to develop this forging process. Ti-
6Al-4V alloy products are readily hot
forged in air at temperatures greater
than 1,600F, where flow stress
decreases dramatically with increasing
forging temperature. However, com-
pared with steel pipe, titanium alloys
exhibit a very high strain-rate sensi-
tivity, resulting in flow stresses that
increase dramatically at high strain
rates. Numerous upset trials on full-
length 2.875-in.-OD titanium pipe
were made on a production-machine
MAY 2000
 upsetter normally used for steel
drillpipe. These trials demonstrated
that Ti-6Al-4V alloy pipe could be
upset successfully and reproducibly in
two hits by use of processing condi-
tions and rapid-strain-rate upset
equipment used for steel pipe.
The S-N fatigue life of fully-surface-
conditioned titanium pipe proved to
be quite variable when tested by rotat-
ing-cantilever and four-point bend
tests. To eliminate this variability,
maximize fatigue life, and prevent
handling and wear damage on
drillpipe surfaces, the titanium-pipe
surfaces were shot peened thoroughly.
The shot-peening treatment instills a
0.020- to 0.025-in. compressive layer
on ID and OD surfaces. Maximum
compressive stresses within this layer
were estimated to be approximately
90 ksi. The resulting improvement of
S-N fatigue life was demonstrated by
both rotating-cantilever and four-
point bend tests. Shot-peened
2.875-in.-OD pipe consistently pro-
vided fatigue life greater than 1.5 mil-
lion cycles at bend radii greater than
52 ft.
To ensure that this procedure was
not detrimental to the tool joint, sev-
eral tool joints were destructively test-
ed for tensile, hardness, and impact-
toughness properties before and after
shrink fit. No significant effects on
any properties were measured.
Titanium-pipe-OD and mating-
tool-joint-ID dimensions and toler-
ances must be consistent and have
very close tolerances to obtain
minimum interference and repro-
ducible adequate joint strength. Very
accurate OD/ID measurements
must be made before selecting mat-
ing components.
Summary
Project objectives were to develop
2.875-in.-OD-titanium-drillpipe
assemblies with mechanical proper-
ties equal to anticipated service loads
in short-radius drilling and a fatigue
life 10 times that of steel. Fatigue-test
results equivalent to 50- to 60-ft-
radius holes were consistently more
than 2 million cycles, whereas steel
under the same conditions failed at
less than 200 thousand cycles. After
all phases of the testing program were
completed, 18 joints of titanium-alloy
pipe were produced for field trials.
The joints were 30 ft long 2.875-in.
OD and 0.362-in. wall thickness and
were fitted with 3.625-in.-OD FR26
tool joints. The same manufacturing
and assembly procedures developed
to produce the test pieces were used to
produce these joints for field testing.
The pipe was used to drill a 58-ft-
radius-of-curvature well in Greeley
County, Colorado.
Future development plans include
designs for 2.5-in.-OD titanium
drillpipe with 3.375-in.-OD tool joints
and 5.5-in.-OD titanium drillpipe that
can be used in extended-reach- or
deepwater-drilling programs where
the strength-to-weight ratio of titani-
um drillpipe provides distinct advan-
tages over steel drillpipe. JPT
Please read the full-length paper for
additional detail, illustrations, and ref-
erences. The paper from which the
synopsis has been taken has not been

Tu b u l a r U p d a t e
peer reviewed.

Assembly Procedures
The shrink-fit-assembly procedure
requires rapid stab and makeup of the
hot, threaded tool joint onto the
threaded, cold titanium pipe end, fol-
lowed by rapid cooling. It was vital
that temperatures be used that would
not degrade the steel or titanium com-
ponents being joined. Temperatures
had to be sufficiently high to expand
the steel tool joint over the titanium
pipe during makeup and produce a
proper interference fit for joint
strength. However, the maximum
temperature and exposure time had to
be limited so temperature embrittle-
ment, mechanical-property changes,
and excessive surface oxidation would
not occur. Excessive surface oxidation
can compromise joint strengths by
decreasing the frictional coefficient
between mating metal surfaces.
Because of these considerations, a
rapid tool-joint-heat-up procedure
with an electric induction-coil heater
was used to minimize tool-joint heat-
ing time to less than 15 minutes
while achieving target temperatures
less than 1,200F. After shrink fit, the
hot connection was cooled rapidly
with water to minimize effects on
titanium pipe and improve produc-
tion throughput.

53
MAY 2000