Strength in Numbers

Just like millions of other kids growing up during the mid-1970s heyday of Saturday morning cartoons, I used to watch an animated series called Super Friends. Glued to the tube, bowl of cereal in hand, I would marvel as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and a veritable A-list of other superheroes collaborated and focused their unique powers on a problem that threatened to destroy the planet. If you were a fan, you know that they always emerged victorious.

By today’s standards, my beloved childhood cartoon seems low-tech and dated. But its underlying message still rings true: combining the best characteristics of individual constituents often achieves amazing things.

As a grown-up applications engineer, I frequently apply the same basic principle in my work. That is, when I am faced with the challenge of sealing critical gear used in upstream oilfield processes, I do not always consider a single material or configuration. Instead, I think about how I can combine the properties of each to create a solution greater than the sum of its parts.

If you are designing for today’s hotter, faster oilfield equipment applications, this approach may work for you, too.

Changing Times, Changing Needs

Like television and the rest of the technological landscape, the oilfield industry has experienced sweeping changes during the past 25 years. Market conditions, coupled with advances in the quality and performance of pumps, drives, steerables and other equipment, have resulted in exploration and production practices that are far more aggressive and extreme. Today’s contractors, for instance, are pushing deeper into wells and seeking a much higher rate of penetration. Wash pipe swivels, once considered to have peaked at 120 rpm and 3,700 psi, now regularly run at 200 rpm, between 5,000 to 7,000 psi. Well bore diameters have been boosted from 3 to 4 in, and mud volume has increased exponentially.

This new frontier of higher temperatures, pressures and speeds is placing unprecedented demands on the design engineer whose job it is to protect expensive motors, sensitive electronics and other critical internal components. It is also forcing a more careful evaluation and, in many instances, a serious rethinking of traditional equipment sealing methodologies.