What Does
Lubrication Mean?
Lubrication isn't the mud you add to the borehole but is what you do when you inject the mud into the borehole to reduce friction between the bore and drill stem to ensure the drill turns smoothly. It also helps ensure that the jacking forces generated by the drilling process are minimized.
Additionally, it includes the act of adding lubricants, such as oil, to the parts of any moving system aboard the rig, such as motors, pistons, hydraulic assemblies or doors that squeak.
Trenchlesspedia Explains Lubrication
When you hear a hinge emit that soul-piercing, fingernails-on-a-blackboard noise, you reach for the can of light oil to lubricate it. In a trenchless rehab or construction project, lubrication is a part of life that keeps the machinery working properly. Lubrication is part of a good preventative maintenance plan.
Proper lubrication does three things for the moving surfaces to which it's applied:
- It fills micro-gaps in the surfaces of parts that rub against each other, such as the surface and sidewalls in the pistons and the cylinders within which they reside and move furiously, or the pistons of a hydraulic system (one of hydraulic oil's main jobs is lubrication).
- The thin film of lubrication prevents friction between moving parts by preventing them from touching each other.
- Lubrication heats up when its in use. It also carries the heat away from the parts on which it forms a molecular, chemical barrier: as the lubricant washes through the oil pan of a motor or the drilling fluid reclamation unit.