Search results for "offshore drilling"
showing 7 items of 7 documents
Mitigation of Fatigue Damage and Vibration Severity of Electric Drivetrains by Systematic Selection of Motion Profiles
2016
The offshore drilling industry is among the most demanding markets for electrical equipment. Heave motion, irregular cyclic loads, harsh weather conditions, and vibrations are causing accelerated deterioration of drilling equipment. One of the most common solutions to these problems is to design actuation systems of such machinery overly conservative to gain additional safety, which results in too high initial investment and maintenance costs. To mitigate the fatigue damage and vibration severity of rotating elements of electric drivetrains operating offshore, this paper presents a comparative analysis of four popular input functions used in motion control of industrial systems. We evaluate…
Load Torque Estimation Method to Design Electric Drivetrains for Offshore Pipe Handling Equipment
2016
One of the main design objectives for electric drivetrains operating in offshore drilling equipment is to keep them as small, yet as effective, as possible, to minimize space they occupy on drill floor and maximize their performance. However, practical experience shows that typically choices made by design engineers are too conservative due to the lack of enough data characterizing load conditions. This results in too costly and too heavy selected components. Therefore, in the current paper we present a method to estimate required full-scale motor torque using a scaled down experimental setup and its computational model. A gripper arm of an offshore vertical pipe handling machine is selecte…
Feasibility study of electromechanical cylinder drivetrain for offshore mechatronic systems
2017
Currently, there is an increasing focus on the environmental impact and energy consumption of the oil and gas industry. In offshore drilling equipment, electric motors tend to replace traditionally used hydraulic motors, especially in rotational motion control applications. However, force densities available from linear hydraulic actuators are still typically higher than those of electric actuators. Therefore, usually the remaining source of hydraulic power is thereby the hydraulic cylinder. This paper presents a feasibility study on the implementation of an electromechanical cylinder drivetrain on an offshore vertical pipe handling machine. The scope of this paper is to investigate the fea…
Kick Detection and Influx Size Estimation during Offshore Drilling Operations using Deep Learning
2019
An uncontrolled or unobserved influx or kick during drilling has the potential to induce a well blowout, one of the most harmful incidences during drilling both in regards to economic and environmental cost. Since kicks during drilling are serious risks, it is important to improve kick and loss detection performance and capabilities and to develop automatic flux detection methodology. There are clear patterns during a influx incident. However, due to complex processes and sparse instrumentation it is difficult to predict the behaviour of kicks or losses based on sensor data combined with physical models alone. Emerging technologies within Deep Learning are however quite adapt at picking up …
The Effect of Friction in Passive and Active Heave Compensators of Crown Block Mounted Compensators
2012
Abstract This paper studies the effects of friction model during passive and active heave compensation of offshore drilling equipment. The main purpose of heave compensation while drilling from vessels or semi-submersible platforms is to maintain the drilling operation unaffected by the wave induced motion. The investigated system is of an existing crown mounted compensator. A model of the system is developed which includes mechanics, hydraulics and pneumatics. The passive heave compensation scheme is described including force equalising hydraulic cylinders. In this paper the detrimental effect of friction on the heave compensation performance in both passive and active heave compensation i…
Hydraulic vs. Electric: A Review of Actuation Systems in Offshore Drilling Equipment
2016
This article presents a survey on actuation systems encountered in offshore drilling applications. Specifically, it focuses on giving a comparison of hydraulic and electric drivetrains along with detailed explanations of their advantages and drawbacks. A significant number of industrial case studies is examined in addition to the collection of academic publications, in order to accurately describe the current market situation. Some key directions of research and development required to satisfy increasing demands on powertrains operating offshore are identified. The impact of the literature and application surveys is further strengthened by benchmarking two designs of a full-scale pipe handl…
The Shielding Effect of Drilling Fluids on MWD Downhole Compasses: The Effect of Drilling Fluid Composition, Contaminants and Rheology
2014
Materials such as added clays, weight materials, drill solids and metalic wear products in the drilling fluid are known to distort the geomagnetic field at the location of the Measurement While Drilling (MWD) tool magnetometers that are used to measure the direction of well path. This distortion contributes to substantial errors in determination of azimuth while drilling deviated wells. These errors may result in missing the target of a long deviated 12 ¼″ section in the range of 1–200m; representing a significant cost to be mitigated. The error becomes even more pronounced if drilling occurs in arctic regions close to the magnetic North Pole (or South Pole). The effect on the magnetometer …