Multistage Hydraulic Fracturing Injection Stations
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Solution Overview
Problem
Mechanical actuation of downhole valves in wellbores is challenging, particularly in deviated wellbores, due to difficulties with deploying shifting tools on coiled tubing or conventional ball drop systems, limiting the number of treatable stages.
Innovation Solution
The development of a system with multiple injection stations integrated into a wellbore string, featuring deployable seats and plugs that allow for sequential deployment and cooperation to facilitate the controlled injection of treatment fluids into a subterranean formation, enabling efficient fluid distribution and management.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If conventional ball drop systems are used to actuate downhole valves, then the system structure is simple, but the number of treatable stages is limited and deployment in deviated wellbores is difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The system is divided into multiple injection stations, each with its own flow control member and deployable seat, allowing independent treatment of different stages. Each station can be individually activated by plugs of different sizes, enabling multiple stages to be treated sequentially without retrieving and reconfiguring equipment.
Solution Approach 2:
Plugs of different sizes are nested within each other during deployment. The smallest plug is inside the next smallest, and so on, allowing all plugs to be conveyed through the wellbore string simultaneously. When deployed, each plug travels downhole and seats on its corresponding sized seat, enabling sequential stage activation from a single deployment operation.
2Ease of operation
If shifting tools on coiled tubing are used for mechanical actuation, then valve control is achievable, but deployment in deviated wellbores becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces complex mechanical shifting tools with a simpler plug-and-seat system. Instead of using mechanical actuators that must be precisely positioned and operated, the system uses gravity-driven plug deployment where plugs of different sizes automatically travel downhole and seat on corresponding sized seats, providing valve control without complex mechanical intervention.
3Productivity
If multiple injection stations are integrated into the wellbore string, then the number of treatable stages increases, but the system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Each injection station uses the same basic components (flow control member, deployable seat, port) but varies in configuration to treat different stages. The standardized modular design allows multiple stations to be integrated into the wellbore string without proportionally increasing complexity, as each station is a repeatable unit that can be independently activated.
Data Source
AI summary
There is provided a plurality of injection stations, wherein each one of the injection stations, independently, comprising: a housing; a port extending through the housing; a flow control member configured for displacement for effecting at least opening of the port such that, when the injection station is integrated within a wellbore string that is disposed within a wellbore of a subterranean formation, and treatment fluid is being supplied through a wellbore string passage of the wellbore string, injection of the supplied treatment fluid into the subterranean formation is effected through the port; and a deployable seat, mounted to the housing, and including an aperture, and configured such that, when the seat is deployed in a deployed position, the seat is configured for receiving a respective plug for seating of the respective plug over the aperture of the seat; such that a plurality of plugs are respective to the injection stations, wherein each one of the plugs is respective to a deployable seat of a one of the injection stations, such that each one of the plugs is respective to a one of the injection stations.