How Do You Steer a Drill Below The Earth?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.ค. 2022
- When the commotion of construction must be minimized, try horizontal directional drilling!
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Like laparoscopic surgery for the earth, horizontal directional drilling (or HDD) doesn’t require digging open a large area like a shaft or a bore pit to get started. Instead, the drill can plunge directly into the earth’s surface. From there, horizontal directional drilling is pretty straightforward, but it’s not necessarily straight. In fact, HDD necessarily uses a curved alignment to enter the earth, travel below a roadway or river, and exit at the surface on the other side.
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Thanks for the opportunity to collaborate! This was so fun to do!
i see these ads all the time. and i don´t mind since it seems like a good deal and great content, so a good sponsor. and i was actually about to sign up but they only accept credit cards. come on guys if you wanna be taken seriously you can´t just offer a single stone age payment method and leave it at that. you´re leaving plenty of money on the table.
thats cool and all but i haven't watched a ad for 5 years now
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it´s literally IN the video mate, if you haven´te watched a sponsored message by a youtuber for 5 years, you haven´te been watching youtube in 5 years
Love me some Coding Train!!!
I work in the fiber optic network industry, and previously worked in the gas utility industry. We used to joke that you should always carry a length of fiber optic cable with you in case you get stuck on a deserted island. Just bury the cable and when the guy with the backhoe comes out to cut it you can just ride back with him.
I just laughed out loud at this.
Good joke but it's hard not to blame the guy that put it there using only the sod to cover it.
In surveying we had a similar joke. If lost set a survey marker and someone on a piece of excavating equipment will be by shortly to tear it out.
@@longridgearchery love these jokes. I promise a lot of us do try not to disturb markers but mistakes do happen and I do apologize for the ones I've accidentally knocked down.
As much as that terribly destructive invasive species, the North American Fiber-Seeking Backhoe, is a pain in the backside, it can come in handy! :-D
That string in the gel demo was awesome and gave such a simple and precise explanation of a problem that I always wondered about. Beautiful!
Yes. Simple in principle, more complex in performance.
Oddly Satisfying
-String- > *Wire* Important distinction here since you can't push a rope/string.
It was perfect
That was simply mind blowing. It made me sit with jaw open "how easy is that". OFC drilling in real life is much more involved, but the principle is so amazingly simple.
I used to work for a UK drilling company as a tracker. We drilled under railway lines with mm tolerances on the tracks. Under woods that had preservation orders and under lots of domestic properties. We drilled under a river aiming for a range rod that the client had stuck in the ground. I will never forget the look on his face when we emerged from the ground and knocked the rod over.
We used to say " any fool can still down. Coming back up and arriving where you want to be takes skill.
How deep hese have to br by regs when drilling under residentials and what if someone has basement or bunker
@@amadkhan1201 When drilling under buildings or rivers where the depth was not guaranteed, we set up further back and drilled deep but further. A sharper angle would strain the putting end of the pipe being pulled through the hole. It was always a very slow pull after a weekend away because sometimes the hole would reduce in size....
The drill head for steering was important, but so was the reamer. After the hole of small diameter it would need to be enlarged. This was done by pulling a larger reamer back to the rig. Behind the reamer was another string of drill rods and other a larger reamer. Once the hole was made oversize a tube was pulled through to finish the job. The ground would settle around the pipe and job was finished.
@@uk_steve do you have to be good at math to be a driller?
@@kingmichaeln1 I've never drilled but I used to work around drillers and would spot utilities for them at my old job and from what I could tell no you don't need to be a math wiz to do it
@@kingmichaeln1 if you want to be very accurate as well as fast and efficient as the drill locator/tracker you do need to be able to do simple addition and subtraction in your head on the fly. But lets be honest, that could be taught to a 10 year old very easily.
Thanks Grady! This answered so many questions that I didn’t even know I had. We had one of these drill right through the water supply to our house. They were like, “there isn’t a pipe here” and I was like, “well, there’s no water going into our house anymore so…”
They had it all patched up in a couple days.
in a couple OF days.
@@simontay4851 both options are fine
@@simontay4851
In a couple o' days
In a coupla days
Hi, Hank!
Could do a scishow video on this stuff. Im sure there are many extreme examples of this type of work, and you could even feature your anecdote.
@@simontay4851 I might take you a couple days to understand, but grammar isnt as strict as some people might like it to be.
we make the rules.
As we write, and as we talk.
used to work on a directional drilling crew. very cool. we were a small company and one day we hit a big set of fiberoptic lines. poor company went bankrupt after paying for repairs on that fiber.
The company didn't carry insurance for incident like that?
Good lord. You wouldn't happen to ever install bright orange posts for locating the line? Someone tried to say a salesperson lied to us about installing fiber optic on a ton mile stretch of our road. Obviously they plan to install it because we literally already have high speed internet it's just severely limited by the line. I assume whenever that gets put in we'll have like maximum speeds to our plain line. Because they're fusing the two systems just like when I converted my car speakers to regular electricity from having the signal come from a fiber optic line into self powered devices
@@skuzlebut82 damaging fiber optic lines can cost millions in repairs.
Ouch! I was an inspector for drilling crews for years. I have seen them hit and destroy a lot of things, but thankfully no electrical and no fiber optic lines.
@@Bootysmoothie “converted to regular electricity”
as opposed to what other kind of electricity?
Here in Germany that drilling method did become more known to the public when the company "FlowTex" was sued for the (back then) most expensive large-scale fraud in Germany. The damage was roughly 4.2 billion USD.
The company had 270 machines but those were sold multiple times (3142 machines had been sold).
When they had investors visiting they drove to one drilling site, then had lunch and then drove to a different drilling site. During the lunch brake they moved the drills from site 1 to site 2 creating the illusion of a bigger pool of machines. (see my correction)
*Correction*
The scam worked more like that they changed the serial number plates on existing machines with new created serial number plates.
Germany is home of alot of biggest corporate fraud. wirecard was a recent one, every few years 5bil gets scammed away over there. just imagine the kind of fraud cash flow the banks do facilitate
That's fantastic, what a dumb way to use your intelligence.
@@dispatch-indirect9206 You have to catch and prosecute the "brass balls" who pull off scams like that. Admiring them just encourages them to do more damage.
@@sincerelyyours7538 ok boomer
@@mustafam1792 They're right though
As a utility locator, The talk about the potential impacting of other underground utilities was greatly appreciated. Always call before you dig!
Agreed I locate gas and water lines for a city in my area so my crews can install new gas main and services to houses I'm responsible for the gas and water owned by the city as well as all private utilities a good day is a day where none of my crews hit utilities especially any buried gas lines
@@williamdavis3128 I also locate gas as well as electric. It’s a demanding job but satisfying knowing that my hard work is paying off by allowing others to work safely and go home to their families everyday.
Heh, can't tell you how many times I've seen locates on things in the wrong spot here. That 1 meter accuracy tends to be more than a meter for the people here lol.
Yep. Had underground primary 3 phase drilled into yesterday actually lol, locating is tough because contractors are always going to try and pin the blame on the locator.
@@boostaddict_ A lot of people don't understand that there are a lot of variables that can impact the accuracy. Certain soils and rocks for example can. As can interference from other utilities. That is why dig laws require the contractor to pothole before excavating. The only sure way to locate a utility is to put eyes on it.
I worked installing fiber optic cable when I was in high school, horizontal drilling 4’ underground in residential areas. I was the guy who used a hydrovac to expose existing utilities before drilling so you didn’t hit them with the bit.
I then got a degree in petroleum engineering and work in the oil and gas industry drilling horizontal wells. The concept is identical and many technologies are shared , only difference is you start going horizontal at 10,000’ instead of 4’!!
That's epic! If only the dudes that dug up all our utilities used this method XD
but wouldnt this drilling destroy artifacts, skeletons, ancient buildings/burials, or fossils?
because you never see what you are drilling into
@@Blox117 a hydro vac will cause less damage than a backhoe as far as incidental objects are concerned. It uses pressurized water to cut and liquefy the soil before vacuuming it out
@@Blox117 nah usually you dont dig where that stuff is known to be and if you find it you *should* report it
But trust me, some construction sites rather just pretend they didnt just see a bone and yeet it rather than getting the project stopped for some expert to come and dig up the stuff for history purposes
Have seen that happen a few times where they stumbled upon an old village but that was when they laid a gas pipeline that was like a half a meter across and required a fuckton of digging 😅
My hone region of ohio is known as "DD paradise" because there are 50 or so directional drilling companies based in a 20 Sq mile area. Also 4 years ago, TC Energy did a reconstruction project on the east buckeye express 36in diameter natural gas pipeline which travels underneath 3 major waterways in my region. My favorite way to kill time was to go out and watch the semi sized drilling rigs boring and pulling up to 3 miles of pre-bent thick wall pipeline on the ROW.
I do a lot of flagging and restoration for a few company's here in Ohio that are putting in natural gas lines it is a fascinating thing to watch especially how they weld the plastic lines together all in all it's fun to watch and ask questions about
Double D Paradise? Count me in!
I would think that would be a good name for a strip club!
What a boring way to kill time
@@LKLM138 🤣
Having recently experienced fiberoptic cable installation in my neighborhood, I can confidently say the lack of trenching was both noted and appreciated
Very much yes. Some sewage pipes and Spectrum cables were cut, but the city remained open
Trench me, daddy~
My gas connection was installed in a similar manner. Meant they dug two tiny holes a D didn't have to close off the entire road and destroy my entire driveway. Job was done in a day, filled in the two tiny holes the day after, was cheap too
I'm a HDD rig operator and I tell you, I never managed to explain to angry people that it's better to have the rig on a portion of the road for 2 days rather than having a trench dug on the whole road. So I'm happy to see some people actually do realise that.
@@Stettafire I'd like to steer my drill inside your gas connection if you catch my drift
I could never have imagined how you can steer a long, flexible drill bit. After you explained it, it seems so obvious.
Drill bits are about a foot long on average, one component to a drill string. The bottom part is called the BHA (bottom hole assembly) the steerable part, and the part behind it is the drill pipe, the flexible part you are talking about. Old drill strings from the sixties and seventies were made up of drill collars for weight and stiffness, stabilisers, which were placed for a specific effect, build and drop or rotate ahead as straight as possible, jars to free you if you got stuck, reamers and hole openers and so on, more complex than you can imagine
ok
@@tamthuong4048 thanks for adding that to the convo.
Honestly this was the best and simplest demonstration of how it works I’ve yet seen.
I studied geology and worked with directionally drillers at a utility contractor. Their biggest challenge the drilling foreman told me was hitting hard rock at glancing angles. The problem project that eventually had to be trenched was at the foot of the Wasatch mountains and they hit a high quartz content sedimentary layer less than 30 degrees from parallel to it and it just skipped along the outside edge of that fold and came out where they didn't want it to. They had drilled right through it at more square angles where the bit would be forced to go ahead and chew through that harder to cut rock.
They use pulsed mud systems sometimes for locational information. We used to do maintenance on downhole tools, and one we had was a probe that was powered by a turbine spun by the mud going down the drillshaft. it sent information back to the headunit by limiting the mudflow, causing pressure pulses upstream.
More useful than radio when you're 20kft or more deep. Measured all kinds of information. Radiation, vibrations, temperatures, gyro orientation, magnetic fields. All useful for figuring out where and what you're drilling through when you can't see it.
Oh also tangentially related (no pun intended), the drill bits on the end, are also powered by that same mudflow. It's quite ingenious use of an already required aspect of drilling to add a power transfer through the lubrication medium. It's like if the coolant pump on your CNC mill actually powered the computer and the spindle at the same time.
Lemme name-drop some other science-channel or learn-channel, cause i like sharing Fun and thats all the reason i need: Sci Man Dan, Sci Show, UpisnotJump, Plaanrwalk, Second Thought, Hbomberguy, Joe Scott.
"pulsed mud" is unexpected tech, right along with "coal pipeline".
they actually don't use mud pulsing tools for HDD. We use wireline or telemetry. Mud pulsing tools are relatively slow for the process. Wireline is real time.
Also mud pulsing would only allow for DC tracking while other system will allow for AC tracking.
I assisted an HDD on Mariner East 2, ME2. We had an inadvertent return so bad we built a pit around it and simply used it as a recirculation pit. There was a lot of effort to mitigate damage professional geologists at each drill and field techs/engineers walking the surface to look for IR's. Amazing tech
Some of the HDD companies that I've worked with potholed every 75-100 feet along the return with a vac truck and removed the mud before they had IRs. It works pretty well but our geology is mostly clay so that's easy, the bore depths were also pretty shallow at around 8-10 feet.
Must have been really out of hand most pipeline companies just hire labour to walk around checking for releases and the big guys only show up if they find something.
@@andrewv5104 We were deep, around 60 feet to be below a stream and stay in rock. We spent several weeks there. We had two rigs drilling. We missed each other once and spent two days drilling to intercept again. Solid rock. What was on our side is that a line had previously been drilled and our IR's hit the same spot.
@@collinscody57 The ME was issue prone so it was written into their permits they would have a PG and environmental techs/field engineer/inspector from a third party. It was expensive but helped get issues resolved quickly and give the DEP a piece of mind.
@@cmdr1911 peace of mind*
And thanks for bringing your story and experience with this, especially as part of the mentioned pipeline in the video. Very interesting stuff.
The drill bit knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the drill bit from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is.
Whatever you said I don't think it knows where it is or where it's at or where it's been
I almost forgot that existed. Thank you for reminding me :D That video and the Rockwell Encabulator are some of my all time favorites haha
@@jokekelleey2071 its the "the missile knows where it is" copypasta but edited to be about drilling instead
Thank goodness you said what obviously needed to be stated.
The underground steering example is really fun and helpful, impressive work!
ok
I work for a water/sewer district and because of our topography, we use a gravity sewer system. This means that all our sewer lines must be perfectly straight and at precise angles. Because of this trenching is preferable as directional drilling is not perfectly straight and this creates low and high spots in the line which will require continual flushing and maintenance. We do occasionally use boring to lay water pipe underground though as it is not requisite that water pipe be perfectly straight.
I work for a telecom company and HDD is a godsend sometimes for laying optic cables 💪 Literally zero downsides, except for cost 😅
I would look in to wire line and/or better drillers if you are facing those issues.
Yep, microtunneling is king for gravity pipes
@@VicScott in the video itself, he said that directional drilling isn’t straight. It’s continually curving. Also we have no control over the contractors we use. We have to put projects out to bid and are legally required to choose the lowest bid. The lowest bidder often subcontracts out the work. Using open trenching, we get perfectly straight lines, GPS shots of the pipe in situ for mapping purposes, and we use lasers and other means to keep an exact grade.
I work for our water department as well and all our sewer lines are all gravity, we don't have a single lift station
4:50 bentonite needs hours of mixing to shear so it creates the shear-thinning fluid it needs to be able able to suspend cutting while pump is off. Posting this comment while my drilling bit is drilling at 14,000 ft below ground. I always liked the way u demonstrate concept and really liked how u showed how mud supports well walls.. one more thing is also when water infiltrate in permeable sand leaving solids on wells wall which supports it which we call filter cake. Ty for ur quality content and good presentation. Glad i found something to relate to in ur channel.
Drilling fluid and its thixotropic behavior would a good subject for another video.
@@snifrbelin New words unlocked:
Thixotropic: Decrease of viscosity over time under shear strain. [Yogurt / Threadlocker]
Rheopecty: Increase of viscosity over time under shear strain. [Mashed potatoes / Car LSD]
Pseudoplastic: Distinct from Thixotropic, since it's not time dependent. [Ketchup / Whipped cream / Modern paint / Nail polish]
Dilatant Fluid: Distinct from Rheopecty, since it's not time dependent. [Quicksand / Cornstarch mix / SillyPutty]
You da MANNN!!!!!
@@0Rookie0 I 💖 You
@@0Rookie0 is cyanoacrylate thixotropic?
I work at an Engineering firm and have designed multiple directional drills across intercoastal waterways. I now use this video to introduce new engineers to the basics of directional drill. Thanks for putting this together. Also, I see you used to work for Freese, we are partnered with them on a project. I'm a Kimley-Horn guy.
I once wrote a guidance program for a pneumatic directional drill head. It allowed for horizontal and vertical profiles, and I had to invent a method for aligning two vectors in space using at most 2 curves with a minimum radius of curvature (it involves normal vectors to planes and an iterative approach). The drill head was one of a kind, with no mud required and an average speed of 1 foot a minute. The contract fell apart though, due to various factors. It's still one of my proudest achievements.
As a locator, that would be cool to use
impressive programming
that's super interesting its also similar to how the apollo capsules were steered on reentry. The mass was off center so by rotating the capsule it could change pitch or yaw
Several type of missiles are steered in the same manner, hence why some spiral.
Also how surgeons use a guide wire to steer a coronary catheter through the circulatory system for things like installing stents and performing angiography
The Apollos story is just a BIG fairytale. Watch _American Moon (English Version) by Massimo Mazzucco_ th-cam.com/video/KpuKu3F0BvY/w-d-xo.html
What would the kinetic energy be of that capsule, falling from the moon, reaching 11 km/s at reentry? What was the kinetic energy be of that capsule at reentry?
@@elbuggo the module was 5557 kg. At 11 km/s its energy would be 336 Gigajouls or 93 Megawatts hours.
I live a few miles from an area that was affected by the Mariner issue and it was downplayed and covered up more than you could imagine. They struck old mine shafts here which leaked blood red water into the river for weeks. There was coal ash making its way into the river. Cutting fluid which they were caught using something other than what they were supposed to be. It's been a while but now I'm going to look into it more again.
Give ‘em hell, Mr Walker Texas Ranger.
Uh oh. Coal ash? That stuff is radioactive.
@@jjbarajas5341 Mildly so. The bigger danger is when it gets airborne and into your lungs
You know you messed up when chuck norris is on the case
Keep complaining. Pretty soon, there will be so much red tape, life will cease to exist as you know it. No more electricity. No more gas. No more running water. No more indoor plumbing.
That offset drill bit is such a simple, elegant solution. I always wondered how those worked.
Your talent for making state-of-the-art engineering understandable is incredible. Absolutely love and appreciate your work making these concepts that are often literally buried underground and in mathematics visible for us lay-folk :)
In the Oil industry drilling, the underground motor can partially close and open valves to make pressure pulses in the fluid line. Those pulses work as a digital communication system that can be used to determine the position, orientation etc. It is slow, but since the drilling process is very slow too, it is good enough.
Usually, the energy to operate the system is also extracted form the fluid movement.
That is sooo coooollllll!!!!
It isnt the motor that creats the pulses in Oil well drilling. Its the MWD/LWD tools that do that + mud motor drilling is steadily declining with RSS systems being prefered.
How is that powered? Does it just use a small dynamo?
All day every day buddy! Drilling one now! This particular location has been the biggest challenge of my career and even RSS is giving us trouble. On losses so the pulses on lesser tools don't work. We had to get SLB out there with a slimhole tool that works.
Slow!?! We are drilling and casing off 20,000’ wells in less than 14 days. The tools pulse and communicate instantaneously.
“Like laparoscopic surgery for the earth”. Probably the single most brilliant analogy I’ve ever heard in my life. Well done sir, well done.
Likewise pulling back the guide wire !! Lots of similarity to medical interventional techniques.
I worked at a shop where we machined the drill bits for these. I never knew exactly how they worked, we just machined them and sent them off. They weren’t the motorized type but the dirt digger style that relied on the shaft rotation to cut holes. It looked like a normal bit but with half of the front end chopped off at angle. Anyways, thanks for making this video so I understand how the technology works a lot better.
I turned a lot of parts used in oil drilling, pretty cool stuff, long cycle times so easy money once you got it programmed right
I love those coding challenges, he does it in a very human way, we witness every mistake and head scratcher, then he explains the solution, fix and the entire thought process with each step. It’s weirdly exciting to see the project succeed
I drove by these crews in Broward for months and didn’t get what they were up to and why it was taking so long.
It is so easy to get frustrated with the delays they kept causing 😅, thanks for helping me understand the complexity of what was going on.
Did they cause the delays, or did car centric infrastructure cause the delays? 🤔 You can fit a lot more people in limited space on bikes and buses
@@ThomasBomb45 "car centric infrastructure" 🤓🤓🤓🤓
@@ThomasBomb45 And how long does it take again? Going to work 10 miles away, on a bike vs a car?
Extra difficult (often impossible) if you carry some things with you, need to pick someone up or to stop by the groceries on your way home.
Not to mention stinking of sweat all day at work, or where ever you're going.
@@ThomasBomb45 try telling builders to put their tools on pushbikes 😅
ok
It is for the birds. When I operated heavy equipment one cattle egret came to recognize me and would follow me around in the morning until I finally started tearing up the ground. (Others would appear then, but that one bird would greet me every morning when I parked my car.) I could almost hear his sweet, gentle morning greeting: "HEY! WHERE'S MY BREAKFAST?"
Lmao what?? fr??
@@mastershooter64 Birds are smart as heck! In fact, most animals are much more intelligent than we give them credit for. If you've ever had a pet, you'll have experienced this first-hand.
Yes, I have 2 starlings that have an alarm call specifically for me, because I have given their nest building an eviction notice twice now, evicting them without compensation, and they are still around the area, and still angry with me. They can nest elsewhere, but not inside the building like they wanted to. The chicks with them recognise me, but do not call the alarm, only the parents.
@@Zappygunshot Lol yeah animals are smarter than we give them credit for, if my cat wanted to go out, it would sit next to me and meow at me and when I looked at it, it would walk to the door and meow at the door telling me to open it
@@SeanBZA Silly question, but have you ever considered trying to provide some sort of constructed bird shelter for them? No guarantee they'd actually use it, of course, but sometimes when there's little disputes like these such methods can be surprisingly effective at keeping the "peace", or at least in providing some of the warm-n-fuzzies you can get from being a pal to wildlife.
I didn’t even know these machines existed before I started working in civil construction. I have been on the drill crew and I think Grady gives an excellent overview of how these machines work. They are great when the goings good but when things break or if they hit utilities it’s very costly. We use traffic control to keep things safe for the crew and the public especially in residential areas.
Great stuff, as usual Grady. I worked on a remediation project in VA a few years back. We needed to connect some ground water remediation wells to a small water treatment plant we built. Those wells were on the opposite side of the Shenandoah River from the treatment plant. We hired a contractor and I was lucky enough to be the oversight rep for this contractor so I got to watch the process first hand. About 3/4 of a mile long and 40’ under the river bed thru mostly solid rock. Remarkable technology.
Great video, as usual. I splice fiber for a living. My work depends on HDD crews followed by pedestal/hand hole installer crews to get their jobs done before the fiber blowing crews can put the fiber cable in.
Something not mentioned here (which I think is very important for the public to know) is the importance of "call before you dig". Our HDD crews have to put in locate service requests 72 hrs before they start. Any company with utilities/pipes/fiber/gas has 72 hours to mark the requested route with spray paint or flags. If they DO NOT MARK IT, the repair cost is their burden when it gets hit.
There is a huge misconception that HDD crews are always careless when they are drilling. Many times, other companies have not properly grounded their systems, used tracer wire in non-conductive pipes, or adequately documented where their pipes are... their buried utilities can't be definitively located.
One job just up the road from me has broken the water main so many times because the city claims they don't have the equipment, manpower, or budget to do the locate requests and mark where the water main goes... Even though the primary contractor offered to give them the equipment and pay an overtime rate for all city employees needed to complete the task. In the end, they hit the water main 3 times a week and they are portrayed as the bad guys.
For those wondering... hitting a 288 fiber cable and damaging a 1000' section can run well over $15,000 in fiber splicing cost alone. I don't know the HDD costs or any of the other expenses needed to replace the cable... But it is very expensive to break a fiber cable.
Most of the guys doing fiber are payed by the meter so basically if your not drilling your losing money. But I would say just at a minimum you would be $500/hour in cost. The worst part is no matter who hit it or why gossip travels and it hurts your company reputation.
also, accidents do happen on both ends. a guy I worked with years ago was on a bore project at an airport, and the rig operator was going for speed over precision when his bit came up through the runway surface. other side of the coin, a trenching crew cut a 125 pair copper phone bundle when the country grader graded the road in between the underground locate service marking it and the trenching crew trenching it.
@@kenbrown2808 that sucks, but so true. Some other company on a jobsite can screw up vital info needed for the HDD crews.
Apparently HD drillers have had it relying on the utility maps for locating other existing pipe and lines. The various detection equipment business are taking off.
@@kenbrown2808 Sounds like nobody wants to go down through bedrock actually drill, where there is plenty of room. Instead, everybody just wants to ram though the soil, and it’s getting crowded.
There was recently an interesting project near where i live. A city wanted to create an underpass without closing the road above. They did it by pushing a concrete underpass tunnel prefab through the soil using hydraulics. Then, later, excavated the internal part of the underpass and voila...all done without any road closures.
They have done that many times here in Florida of all places. Pretty neat to watch. It is called box jacking. Some have put underpass for cars and others were for trains to go under roadways.
Found your channel a couple of months ago and I have to say, Grady - I really love your videos. The way you explain things professionally, the editing, production quality and the details you go into really make for top quality content!
I was a civil engineer in the UK for 8 years and I'm still learning a lot from you!
Thank you 😁
ok
I've always wondered about this.
On a much more amateur level, when I was a landscape contractor, I often had to run pipes under sidewalks and driveways. I had this similar device, although there was no directional ability. A simple blade head mounted on the end of 1" black pipe. At the other end, a T fitting that accommodated a garden hose and a 1/2 drill adapter. We would dig down a foot and as horizontal as possible, and other trench on the other side.
Worked great. Never a problem although my contract had a disclaimer about unforeseeable circumstances under their pavement.
The Coding Train is such a great channel, didn't expect this crossover but very fun to see him here
I stopped watching as soon as I saw him
@@windowsxseven weird flex but ok
Best Vid yet, I always wondered how they did that and now I know. The demos of an asymmetric bit steering the drill string are excellent.
Can you build such a machine on paper? NO, because you still don't know how it works. you only know the theory, no practical comprehension regarding the drill manipulation or function. How do a bit steer if it needs to continuously turn to drill? You don't know. I don't know.
@@alltheusernameswastaken8936 Well of course I couldn't build one of these machine based on a 12 minute TH-cam video....It's a demonstration of a principle, not a PhD on how to design, build and operate these devices so for those of us who started out knowing nothing about it at least I get the idea and can drill down into the subject further if I want to know more (forgive the pun).
@@alltheusernameswastaken8936 um the video answers your second question. Either the asymmetrical bit at the end stays in place and fluid pushes out the soil or there's a spinning bit at the end which spins on an axis almost perpendicular to the bore so it's asymmetrical.
Your content flows as smoothly as a "hand-crafted artisanal batch of drilling mud." Outstanding, enjoy every one of these productions.
The plugging of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill back in 2010 was accomplished by directional drilling. They hit the well's 8 inch (?) bore from over a mile away then pumped concrete into it. If memory serves is was more than a mile down to the seabed before the drilling started, pretty amazing.
7:37 this whole demonstration is so effective at showing how this method works, my jaw dropped.
Lol it's alot more complicated than that.
Thank you for showing how underground directional drilling works! I've never seen a demonstration like this before!
Gotta admit, that little wire gel demo was spot on for showing how it works.
I appreciate the way you explain things extremely fluidly, with a wise yet friendly tone. Makes me want to go get a civil engineering degree. Thank you Grady
I have struggled to understand directional drilling for a long time. I had accepted "the pipes are flexible" as the answer.
You explain it so much better with the bent drill head and the agar demonstration. Fantastic video, many thanks.
I've seen those rigs around for *years*, and never knew how they worked; thanks for the concise explanation of this really-slick construction technique!
Not that relevant to the video, but it's probably the best opportunity I'll get to share this for a many years: When a few years ago the 100+ year old sever pipe on my street has decided that it got too old and sediment-ridden, the city set out to dig out a honest-to-god underground tunnel just to replace the pipe with a new one. With a shovel and three guys. Took them about one and a half months, but the guys did it. After the tunnel was finished it only took one workday to completely change out the pipe for the new one. I do kinda understand why they chose tunnel over digging out a trench, but it was still quite surprising to see them actually spending so much time and effort on this.
I've been drilling wells and geotech drilling for 27+ years. Thankfully with the same company. I've always wondered how this type of drilling was done. Now I have a basic understanding of what is happening. Thank you for your time making this video. Keep it up. Your videos are great and informative to watch.
Your examples are fantastic: the animation followed by the wire with the bent end "drilling" through the agar, then the return to the animation to show the next steps. I've worked on projects with HDD, but I've never seen how it works. Thanks you. Love from Liz and Ginger (pic left) in Australia.
Grady does it again! This is yet another thing I've often wondered about when I see them working on the side of the road. Thanks for demystifying these processes for me. Love your channel.
That wire demo was an eye opener. Love the detail your models always show!
I asked myself this question as they were running fiber near my house a few weeks ago. I’m happy you made a video on this, because I could not think of a better person to explain it!
Wow, that steering of the drill bit demo has to be the most fascinating thing I have learned from you to date. I did not know this was even possible and I literally "wowed" when I saw this. Thank you for making these videos!
I'm a geotech engineer with 10 yrs experience and I learn something from everyone of your videos. Thanks for the quality content!
I'm training to be a hdd drill locator using a 2011 vermeer 24x40 drill. My operator has operated this particular drill since new and has been drilling for 28 years (his words). The whole process is pretty cool aside from the digging to spot the household utilities 😅 the way to steer the drill is a clock pattern. Haven't done any waterway crossings yet but the residential stuff is pretty tricky snaking between all the services. Great job and wouldn't change it for a long time
I work for DCI, keep at it
Very informative and enjoyable to watch! I love learning about how things like this are done. I’ve been in construction for 20 years, dug my fair share of trenches but never knew how HDD was done. Thank you, you have made me a subscriber to your channel.
This channel makes me a better engineer by giving me a basic understanding of certain technologies and engineering sciences within other disciplines. This aids in the communication process on interdisciplinary teams and benefits the design process. Thanks!
This was one of your best demonstrations yet! Seeing the wire wind through the agar was a lightbulb moment for me!
I run a Ditch Witch Rock drill in Central Oregon. I drill through solid rock and install Fiber lines. I've only ever hit unlocated lines due to no knowledge of them being there. It's amazing to see what kind of technology we have nowadays and what's in store in the future
Thank you for sharing how directional drilling works. I worked in the oil and gas sector in the 80s where we were hired to explore direction drilling using a coil tubing unit in the Alberta Tar Sands. We were essentially testing how SAGD would work where the product field was close to the surface. Thanks again!
Hey Grady, great video! I've been a utility engineer for about 5 years now, and I'd say you got it right on the money. I would love to see you talk about Microtrench technology as well, since a lot of low voltage lines are switching to that cheaper alternative to boring!
The Coding Train on Practical Engineering was the last crossover I would ever expect, and also the best crossover I could ever ask for. Both such amazing channels!
Brilliant explanation, again Grady!
And I think your use of home made props to explain these concepts make your videos even more enjoyable.
I worked for Jones Communications when they used a huge directional rig to send fiber optics conduit under the Potomac River back around 1995 or 6. The operation was staged in the 295/95 interchange and they had to go from the Alexandria side as well though they tried not to.
I've seen this, the day it was uploaded but i gotta say i still love the way ppl unite when some niche topic is so well explained that everyone involved comes to give the deserved praise for accuracy and their experiences.
As a utility locator, I deal with bore machines everyday, there are many things that they guys have to look out for and I give them massive credit.
As a retired geologist I've been around a lot of "conventional" vertical drill rigs. I've been fascinated by the directional drilling but never been around it. Excellent explanations. This technology is critical. In thin, oil bearing strata thousands of feet below the surface having the drill hole remain within those thin horizons allows more oil to be recovered. Its incredible potential is why crude oil future prices actually fell below $0/barrel a few years ago but that was before... well, we all know. Great Stuff here. Should be required viewing.
Once more, you've answered questions that have been at the back of my mind for a long time, and done it clearly and cheerfully. Thanks for all your work.
In the fall of 1999 I was the lead inspector for a Chevron pipeline project at Bayou Casotte, Mississippi. The contractor used directional drilling for the installation of a 20-inch pipeline underneath a shallow water area. Normal offshore pipelay operations were not possible, which is where a pipeline is laid directly onto the seabed and is then subsequently buried with jetting equipment. As best I can recall, I think the overall distance was approximately 500 ft, with the targeted bury depth at midpoint being perhaps 40 ft below natural bottom. As per the survey contractor, the installation contractor hit the final exit target precisely where intended . This was my first and only experience with directional drilling. I was more than impressed.
This is a question I've always wanted answered but didn't know it. It was fascinating. Thanks.
I wish the city engineers where I live would watch it. I'm pretty sure they have never heard of directional drilling. They always open trench and block traffic.
DD is more expensive than open trenches for large diameters, so the city will tend to use the cheaper method, reserving DD for doing under roads and such, for small diameter lines, and open trenches for large diameter ones.
I wonder if it's truly a matter of ignorance vs other factors, namely cost.
The demo was mind-blowing. Excellent work!
Awesome video once again Grady, I've always been on the trenching side putting in fire lines and sewage. I always saw the vertical drilling units on some job sites I was on and I didn't understand how they would work. I've also seen them in residential a lot. Now I have a better understanding and I thank you for that!
In my region, the topsoil is made up of a mix of caliche and sandy loam. Pretty easy stuff to go through, usually. I saw one bit that looked to me like it had one bit that had a slap on it that could be lifted with hydraulics. My reasoning after examining it for a moment (from several feet away, of course) was that it appeared when they wanted to change direction, they oriented the bit in a specific position and the flap was lifted to literally push the bit to the opposite direction. Then they retracted the flap and started drilling again. Was fascinated by the simplicity of it. There was still drilling fluid used, of course, so I'm not sure of the interaction, but the designed seemed almost head-slap obvious.
I've never witnessed anything larger than a six inch diameter conduit being installed. Would LOVE to see one of these bigger rigs in operation!
Lovely video. I always enjoy your physical models, helps a lot more than 3d renderings or just plain photos. I hope you'll do another video(s) on the other methods, MTBM, Jack & Bore, etc!
I've seen plenty of these being used in my area lately! Installing fiber optics everywhere, mostly under the roadways. I had no idea so much went into just drilling the holes for them, thanks for the fascinating insight!
I remember playing with Schlumberger drilling simulator around 1995. Which was some kind of sales materials. But it was like a full fledged video game at that time... Glad someone took off with similar projects now.
Hey Grady just wanted to say that your channel is great. Inspired me to start to look at my options to go back to school for engineering. And be able to do work I really love for a living. Thanks Grady. Have a good one.
Jay
Last year I had a 500' water line installed, the drill head was steered by a guy with a remote control walking over the desired path of the drill. We had an "inadvertent return", luckily it was in the yard, and was engulfed in grass in a few weeks.
I've been doing telecommunications drilling in urban areas for ~9 years now. I watch your channel all the time so was super excited to see your break-down on the industry. It's not an easy concept to explain to people so I have bookmarked this video to send to people when I get confused looks while attempting to explain how it works!! I love my job and what I do and was impressed how accurate your explanations were. The wire bending through the gel was a brilliant demonstration and really simplifies the process. Cheers from Ontario, Canada.
Great video! A few years back I wanted to figure out how these machines worked, and I had to spend hours researching and reading to figure it out.
This video captured it nicely and I hope saves a lot of people a lot of time and effort next time they decide to learn about one of these directional drilling machines they see on the side of the road.
I've been working for 20 years in oil and gas drilling and used the same techniques using mud motors. Controling the direction is done in the same manner, using a Measure While Drilling tool to keep track. The data was transmitted to the surface with pressure pulses and gave a very good idea of where we were going. We've once drilled an oilwell with a gas cap on top of it, reaching 2200 metres on the horizontal section at a true vertical depth of 2700 metres. This video was fun to watch for me.
They're building a booster station and transmission line near my neighborhood and using directional drilling. It was pretty amazing to see the giant machinery, ramp, and bits. It was also insanely loud. I didn't really understand any of it but this video was extremely timely. Now I just need to understand what a booster station and transmission line is.
A "booster station" is where the Sheeple will go once a month to get their beloved "booster shot" of mRNA gene therapy. The "transmission line" is the device they use to post "feel good" pictures of themselves, proudly displaying their Sheeple Mask on their face encouraging others to become Sheeple and "get boosted" to "flatten the curve".
AT&T has been in my neighborhood installing fiber-optic line. I wondered how they successfully drilled from hole to hole. Thank you, TH-cam!
Hey Grady, I love your channel; am a Civil Engineer and I am familiar with pretty much everything you have covered but still like to watch you explain it. Great video, as usual!
As a Field Supper for a Co in Ca I was tasked with getting a Hi PSI NG Line across a Very Bussy SIX lane Hwy.
After considering the impact to traffic, all the agencies involved, and frog leaping required for testing and advancement, I figured this contracted job would take my crew and I about 10 days best case scenario with inspections work and restoration. I also figured this would cost this project about $60K best case.
I had a meeting with a pipeline contractor, we got a contract for $22K. Our crew pot holed both ends, the drilling crew came at 7am and we had Installation, Testing Complete, and ON LINE before 1pm with a Break!
So we saved well over $30K, and OUR CREW was doing other parts of this contract to keep us On Schedule while Profitable.
You can also cover the cousin, trenchless pipe replacement, used to replace old asbestos fibre cement lines here with HDPE pipe in situ, using a rig that travelled down the old pipe, expanding and fracturing the old century plus asbestos fibre cement water mains, and then pulling in a new HDPE pipe along this channel, with them only having to trench down from the tap off points on the pipe by each consumer, to strap on a tap in connection to the pipe. Minimal asbestos to remove, it all stayed in the ground except by the taps, and as a bonus all the old no longer used tap off points that are a source of leaks (metro admits 53% of all bulk water is lost to leaks and illegal connections) are also gone.
The alternative method is to replace sections of pipe if there is a break, and they did have to dig up a city block of pipe to finally get to a joint, where the old pipe collar did not fracture when they attempted to disconnect it. That was because it was a flange, around a century and a bit old, where there is an equally old shut off valve, that they were able to use. Still put the same fibre cement pipe back in, just asbestos free this time. Around 100 tons of contaminated soil to dispose of, and in the hole you could see history, where the old tram track still had the bed there a half metre down, and the nearly half metre of layered asphalt that constituted the road bed after decades of relaying. Saw some samples where the asphalt was over a metre thick, layers of patches put in to fill in sinkholes from leaks that eroded out the underlay, with quick fix after quick fix. Wanted some old tram rail, but they found none of it there, though it is still common as crash barriers all over the city, still fine after a century of no paint on it.
no, the actual alternative is called blown cured in place pipe relining.
Never understood directional horizontal drilling till now. Thanks!
I worked on a project to get power and signal cables under a railway line using directional drilling. It is something that could be used to drill for oil in the Atlantic without the need for rigs in deep ocean.
There used to be a wood bit that you could drill around a window pane.
Your agar demonstration reminded me of a very interesting research piece I ran into a few years ago about using a flexible tip needle for controlled needle steering using a similar effect!
I love this channel. Thank you so much for making it and keeping it going!
I remember seeing my grandparents using one to install a electric cable. The main company which supplies them calls them Ditch Witches. Pretty fitting name.
Ditch Witch is just a brand name like Ford or chevy
I think the Ditch Witch brand does have some directional drilling equipment, but it also does trenching. Are residential cables installed using directional drilling nowadays?
Ditch Witch is a manufacturer. the original product was a cable plow that would lay a flexible cable through a slot it cut in the ground without ever having an open trench.
@@wfemp_4730 final connections are almost never put in with directional drilling, as far as I know. it's mostly a case of restoring the surface after trenching being more cost effective than setting up a directional bore; when done at that small scale.
@@kenbrown2808 A very narrow trench.
I used to work for an engineering firm that was one of the top 5 firms for design of gas transmission lines including the employment of horizontal directional drilling. Fascinating stuff.
IT engineer here. I've been watching your channel for years now, I bet you share the same passion about your work as I do. I love learning how the world surrounding me works. Keep on the good work !
I've been around construction for many years and I've always been curious how horizontal directional boring was accomplished. I simply dismissed it as "magic". It's still magic to me but now I know it's a "card force".
I work in power utilities and I would have loved a video like this when I first started. I remember underground work being a mystery and having no idea how it works. Well actually it’s still a bit of a mystery. Nobody knows exactly where anything is. We just sorta guess knowing the crew will do whatever they want anyways
This year we had underground power distribution installed in our area. When I authorized the drill rig to set up in my yard, I made it a point to closely observe the process and speak with the operator. It was a most educational experience.
Thank you so much for this video. I had previously tried to search for how HDD works before and none of the videos had any of the clarity you provided.
I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE! I DRINK IT UP!
I was scrolling for this😂
Ha! Me too
Always wondered how this worked. Thanks for the lesson.
Thank you for making this video!! I have seen these in operation, was able to deduce what they were doing, jut not the how. Obviously didn't care enough to research it, but I'm more than happy to sit and watch a video about something I was genuinely curious about.