An iron roughneck is a piece of hydraulic machinery used to "handle" (connect and disconnect) segments of pipe in a modern

drilling rig A drilling rig is an integrated system that drills wells, such as oil or water wells, or holes for piling and other construction purposes, into the earth's subsurface. Drilling rigs can be massive structures housing equipment used to drill wat ...

. The segments can be manipulated as they are hoisted into and out of a

borehole A borehole is a narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water ( drilled water well and tube well), other liquids (such as petro ...

. This type of work was previously performed manually by workers using tongs, and was one of the most dangerous jobs in a drilling operation. However, with iron roughnecks and modern technology, much of this can be done remotely with minimal manual handling. Automated roughnecks became common in deep-water drilling and were later adopted by onshore rigs.

References

{{tech-stub Oilfield terminology