The primary results of the research and engineering work of the Department of Technology and Technique of Well Drilling, carried out and completed in 2000, are presented. The main result of drilling long wells in the ice of Antarctica is the development of the project of environmentally safe opening of the subglacial Lake Vostok, a unique natural phenomenon, the complex study of which is of the greatest interest to the world scientific community. A 505 m long well with full core recovery was drilled on the Academy of Sciences glacier (Severnaya Zemlya archipelago) in the framework of the international environmental program PEGAIS. Geophysical measurements were carried out in the well. A new method of tubeless casing and sealing of anomalous intervals using a fusible binding material and a thermal plugging penetrator was developed. Basic theoretical and technological principles of liquidation plugging of hydrogeological wells with the use of economical and environmentally safe cementing mortar based on cheap mineral waste were developed. Effectively conducted research and experimental developments on the combined heat and hydrodynamic effects on low-productive sands to increase oil and gas production wells, clarified the laws of the hydro and foam core. New applied programs for PC were formed, allowing to increase adequacy of data and to expand the field of application in evaluation of regulation and stabilization of circulation and heat exchange processes during well sinking and development.
Under the efficiency of the process of drilling rocks by fusion should be understood not only the rate of deepening into the rock, but also such factors as the diameter of the well, its ratio with the diameter of the penetrator, the amount of melt formed per unit time, the thickness of vitrified melt on the walls of the well, its strength, the specific energyb consumption per unit of penetration and many other.
Development of a high-performance thermodrill for high-speed sinking of "dry" wells with coring in snow and firn and ice deposits, based on the use of water vapor as an intermediate coolant on the principle of "open" steam tube, causes the necessity to find an analytical expression of the complex heat exchange between condensing steam and the ice face taking into account the shielding effect of the condensate film with thickness e inside the hollow annular condenser and the layer of melt water with thickness S, continuously formed under its working face during the drilling-melting process...
