Insert Safety Valve Design for High-Flow Efficiency
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Summary
Problems
Safety valves in the oil and gas industry face inefficiencies due to wear and tear, leading to partial fluid flow even when closed, exacerbated by the limitations of conventional insert valves which reduce flow rates, wear similarly, and are impractical at greater depths.
Innovation solutions
An insert valve design that allows fluid to flow around the closure mechanism and into its internal volume, with a piston centered and exposed at both ends to neutralize pressure effects, and a pressure chamber to counteract spring forces, minimizing hydraulic seals and enabling operation at greater depths.
TRIZ Analysis
Specific contradictions:
General conflict description:
Principle concept:
If a conventional insert valve is used to replace a worn safety valve, then flow control is restored, but the flow rate is reduced due to the additional components consuming volume of the flow path
Why choose this principle:
The insert valve is installed inside the existing safety valve body, nesting one valve mechanism within another. This allows the insert valve to restore flow control functionality in a worn safety valve while utilizing the existing outer housing to maintain adequate flow path volume, thereby minimizing the reduction in flow rate that would otherwise result from adding external valve components
Principle concept:
If a conventional insert valve with complex hydraulic control is used, then valve operation is achieved, but the number of hydraulic seals increases leading to more wear and leakage
Why choose this principle:
The patent extracts the hydraulic control mechanism from the traditional side-mounted configuration and relocates it to a position where the piston is centered on the valve stem axis. This extraction and repositioning eliminates the need for multiple radial seals and complex hydraulic connections, reducing the number of sealing surfaces and thereby reducing wear and leakage while maintaining full valve operation capability
Application Domain
Data Source
AI summary:
An insert valve design that allows fluid to flow around the closure mechanism and into its internal volume, with a piston centered and exposed at both ends to neutralize pressure effects, and a pressure chamber to counteract spring forces, minimizing hydraulic seals and enabling operation at greater depths.
Abstract
An insert valve installed, at least partially, in a safety valve that includes a flow port disposed on an exterior of the insert valve, a poppet configured to control a fluid flow through the flow port, a piston rod, disposed uphole from the poppet, configured to move the poppet past at least part of the flow port, where the piston rod includes an upper exposed piston area exposed to an internal volume of the insert valve, and a lower exposed piston area exposed to the internal volume of the insert valve, and a hydraulic control port configured to control movement of the piston rod.