Self-Straitening Intervention Rod for Wellbore Reach
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for installing and retrieving sensing fibers in conduits, such as wellbores, are costly, complex, and limited by issues like buckling and the need for vertical headroom, especially in pressurized environments, which restricts the reach and efficiency of monitoring and intervention operations.
Innovation Solution
A self-straightening rod with a utility service line protected by a stiff outer structure and a barrier layer, allowing for easier insertion and retrieval without residual curvature, enabling longer reach and reduced friction, and facilitating remote sensing and tool operations within conduits.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Length of moving object
If coiled tubing is used to push logging tools into the wellbore, then the tools can be delivered to the desired location, but the tubing is subjected to buckling due to the coil being bent on a spool, preventing it from reaching more than several hundred meters
Solution Approach 1:
The rod is pre-straightened by applying heat treatment during manufacturing to eliminate residual curvature from coiling. This preliminary action ensures the rod maintains a straight configuration when deployed, enabling it to reach much greater depths in the wellbore without buckling, thus resolving the contradiction between reach and structural stability.
Solution Approach 2:
The rod's material properties are modified through heat treatment to change its structural parameters, specifically to eliminate residual stresses and curvature. This parameter change allows the rod to maintain straightness over long lengths, enabling deeper wellbore access while maintaining structural integrity.
2Stability of the object's composition
If a stiff outer structure is used to make the rod self-straightening, then the rod has substantially no residual curvature, but the service line may be damaged by stresses in the stiff structure
Solution Approach 1:
The service line is nested within the stiff outer structure, with the flexible service line contained inside the rigid protective shell. This nesting arrangement allows the outer structure to provide straightness and structural stability while the inner service line remains protected from damaging stresses, resolving the contradiction between structural integrity and component reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
A barrier layer is introduced as an intermediary between the stiff outer structure and the service line. This intermediate layer acts as a stress buffer, protecting the service line from the high stresses generated by the stiff structure during bending and deployment, thus maintaining both straightness and service line integrity.
3Ease of operation
If conventional intervention methods are used, then logging tools can be deployed, but a considerable number of personnel and large surface systems are required, and it can take a long time to rig up on the wellhead
Solution Approach 1:
The rod is designed to be self-deploying through the wellbore using its own structural properties. The self-straightening capability allows the rod to push itself into the wellbore without requiring complex external deployment mechanisms or large teams of personnel, thus simplifying operations and reducing equipment requirements while maintaining deployment effectiveness.
4Ease of operation
If vertical headroom above the wellhead is provided for intervention operations, then tools can be rigged and deployed, but in some locations such as offshore platforms, such vertical space is not available due to deck or similar structure above
Solution Approach 1:
The deployment system transitions from a vertical rigging approach requiring significant headroom to a horizontal or angled insertion approach. The rod can be fed into the wellbore from the side or at an angle, eliminating the need for vertical space above the wellhead and enabling operations in constrained environments like offshore platforms where deck space is limited.
Data Source
AI summary
A rod having an embedded optical fiber has a stiff composite outer layer (10) to make the rod self straightening to enable it to be pushed into a pipe or borehole from a spool. This can help enable a reduction of friction between rod and conduit and can enable longer reach. A barrier layer is provided to separate the fiber from the composite layer. The rod can be retrieved after use. The rod can be narrow enough to enable normal flow along the pipe or borehole, and can be injected and retrieved even when the pipe or borehole is pressurized. The fiber can be used for remote sensing of conditions along the conduit. Other tools can be inserted by the rod during the intervention.