When is the Right Time to Buy New HDD Drill Pipe?

Because drill pipe is the most expensive consumable item on horizontal directional drills, it makes perfect sense to push it to the limit. Attempt to get the utmost life out of your entire drill string. However, doing so can risk pipe failure. This brings all of the costs associated with trying to salvage the bore or aborting it altogether.

This leads us to the all-important question – When is the right time to buy new drill pipe?

Well, the perfect time and easy, albeit somewhat facetious answer to this question is, right before your current pipe experiences catastrophic failure. Obviously, that’s easier said than done. However, akin to making any important decision, the more information you have, the better prepared you will be to make that decision. The following information should provide you with valuable insight. It will make that decision easier.

There are several signs of wear and damage to drill pipe over the course of its life that you should be aware of and periodically evaluating. I recommend beginning with the easiest and most obvious. Start by conducting regular visual inspections.

This should go without saying, but if any of the rods are bent, even slightly, immediately remove them from the string. Set them aside for further evaluation. They have obviously experienced oversteering and exceeded the bend radius of the pipe. Thus, they suffer material memory loss. This means it was unable to return to straight after being bent past its bend radius specification.

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