The unconventional reservoir geological complexity will reduce the drilling bit performance. The drill bit poor performance was the reduction in rate of penetration (ROP) due to bit balling and worn cutter and downhole vibrations that led to polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) cutter to break prematurely. These poor performances were caused by drilling the transitional formations (interbedded formations) that could create huge imbalance of forces, causing downhole vibration which led to PDC cutter breakage and thermal wear. These consequently caused worn cutter which lowered the ROP. This low performance required necessary improvements in drill bit cutter design. This research investigates thermal�mechanical wear of three specific PDC cutters: standard chamfered, ax, and stinger on the application of heat flux and cooling effect by different drilling fluids by using FEM. Based on simulation results, the best combination to be used was chamfered cutter geometry with OBM or stinger cutter geometry with SBM. Modeling studies require experimental validation of the results. © 2019, The Author(s).