wireline cross-section
not to scale
not to scale
Drill string
Core in barrel
Wireline cable
Tension overload
Getting a diamond core sample out of a borehole is a two-stage job: first the bit cuts a cylinder of rock into the inner core barrel, then that barrel has to be hauled all the way back to surface on a thin wireline cable — without snapping it. This 2D companion to the 3D "Diamond Core Wireline Retrieval Simulation" turns that second stage into a real physics model: cable tension is computed from the barrel-and-core weight, the wireline cable's own weight over whatever length is still hanging in the hole, rod-string friction, and a drag term that grows with hoist speed. Push the winch too hard while the barrel is still deep and the wireline parts, dropping the core back down the hole. Tune bit rotation speed and winch speed to balance fast recovery against a safe cable load.