Patent ID: 8028764

Claim:
A drill bit for drilling a subterranean formation, comprising: a bit body bearing at least one gage pad and adapted for coupling to a drillstring; a set of accelerometers disposed in the drill bit and comprising a radial accelerometer for sensing radial acceleration of the drill bit and a tangential accelerometer for sensing tangential acceleration of the drill bit; and a data evaluation module operably coupled to the set of accelerometers and disposed in the drill bit and comprising a processor, a memory, and a communication port, the data evaluation module configured for: sampling acceleration information from the radial accelerometer and the tangential accelerometer over an analysis period; storing the acceleration information in the memory to generate an acceleration history; analyzing the acceleration history to determine a distance traveled by the at least one gage pad; analyzing the acceleration history to determine at least one gage-cutting period and at least one gage-slipping period; and estimating a gage pad wear responsive to the analysis of the distance traveled, the at least one gage-cutting period and the at least one gage-slipping period.