Patent ID: 7866413

Claim:
A method of predicting the walk characteristics of a rotary drill bit for drilling at least one subterranean formation, the method comprising: providing a rotary drill bit comprising a plurality of cutting elements fixedly mounted on a face thereof; measuring locations and orientations of at least some cutting elements of the plurality of cutting elements on the face of the rotary drill bit; calculating a magnitude and direction of an imbalance force of the rotary drill bit using at least some measurements obtained by measuring the locations and orientations of the at least some cutting elements; drilling a wellbore with at least one other rotary drill bit having a calculated imbalance force and observing walk characteristics of the at least one other rotary drill bit while drilling the wellbore; comparing the calculated magnitude and direction of the imbalance force of the rotary drill bit to the magnitude and direction of an imbalance force of the at least one other rotary drill bit; and predicting the walk characteristics of the rotary drill bit using the magnitude and direction of the imbalance force of the rotary drill bit, the magnitude and direction of the imbalance force of the at least one other rotary drill bit, and the observed walk characteristics of the at least one other rotary drill bit.