Page 9 - Air and gas Drilling Field Guide 3rd Edition

Preface

This third edition of the Air and Gas Drilling Manual is written as a practical ref-
erence for engineers and earth scientists who are engaged in planning and carry-
ing out deep air and gas drilling operations. The book covers air (or gas) drilling
fluids, aerated (gasified) drilling fluids, and foam drilling. Further, from the
mechanical rock destruction standpoint, the book covers conventional rotary dril-
ling, downhole positive displacement motor (PDM) drilling, and down-the-hole
hammer (DTH) drilling.

The first edition of this book was published in 1984 by Gulf Publishing Com-
pany of Houston, Texas. It was written primarily for the oil and gas recovery
drilling industry and had moderate success, selling out of the initial printing
by the late 1980s. The second edition was published by McGraw-Hill in
2001; it added a significant section on the shallow geotechnical drilling indus-
try (e.g., water wells, environmental monitoring wells, mining ventilation
shafts, etc.), and also discussed shallow reverse circulation, dual wall drill
pipe, and air hammer technologies.
This new third edition is unique in that we have presented the entire engineering
material in both the USCS and SI unit systems, including the important equations
used for air (or gas) drilling and aerated (gasified) drilling, along with the foam
drilling calculations. Solutions based on these equations are given in MathCad™,
using both USCS and SI units, providing readers with complete transparency into
the solution process for these complicated fluid flow problems. These Math-
Cad™ solutions are presented in the appendices.
The authors would like to thank the editors and staff at Elsevier Science and Tech-
nology Books and especially Senior Acquisitions Editor Ken McCombs and Pro-
duction Project Manager Anne McGee. Their support and assistance during the
preparation of this manuscript were invaluable.

The authors would also like to thank the technical staff of the underbalanced dril-
ling group of Weatherford International for their continued support of our efforts
to prepare this manuscript. We particularly appreciate the continued encourage-
ment of Jim Stanley.