The forged friction welded drill rods (FFW) are the top notch when it comes to directional drilling applications.
The special steels used for making this type of rod boast out-of-the-ordinary mechanical features, with a unitary breaking load exceeding 1.100 MPa. The drill rods are produced by friction welding two threaded tool joints (male and female) to a segment of the pipe. Before welding, the ends of the pipe are forged – a heat treatment procedure which helps strengthen the welding section. The pipe is then subjected to a quenching & tempering heat treatment to improve its resistance and resilience further. Before being welded to the tube, the tool joints are subjected to a thermo-chemical treatment (nitrocarburization), making it possible for the thread surfaces to reach a degree of hardness greater than 56 HRC. This manufacturing technology was introduced in Colli Drill in 2001, and is the most cutting edge technology available today for producing high resistance drill rods for directional drilling.