Patent ID: 8016050

Claim:
A drill bit for drilling a subterranean formation, comprising: a bit body bearing a plurality of cutting elements and a shank extending from the bit body and adapted for coupling to a drillstring; an annular chamber formed within the shank; 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 disposed in the annular chamber and comprising a processor, a memory, and a communication port, the data evaluation module configured for performing a bit acceleration analysis, comprising: 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 cutting effectiveness of the plurality of cutting elements responsive to changes in the acceleration history; and reporting the cutting effectiveness through the communication port.