Fracturing Fleet Stage Script Control for Pumping Exceptions
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing hydraulic fracturing processes face challenges in efficiently managing pumping sequences, leading to costly delays and potential safety hazards due to unpredictable exceptions such as equipment failures or changes in wellbore conditions.
Innovation Solution
A managing application is used to automate the pumping sequence and handle exceptions, retrieving instructions from a storage server, and utilizing stage scripts written in scripting languages to control fracturing units. The application monitors equipment data, compares it to expected outputs, and generates exception notices to alert personnel, while also implementing automated exception handling to resolve common issues without manual intervention.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If manual monitoring and control of pumping sequences is used, then personnel can respond to exceptions, but costly delays and safety hazards occur due to unpredictable equipment failures or wellbore condition changes
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements automated exception handling where the control system monitors itself and automatically responds to exceptions without requiring manual intervention. Sensors detect equipment failures or wellbore condition changes, and pre-programmed responses are executed automatically, enabling the system to service itself and maintain continuous safe operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors equipment data and wellbore conditions through sensors, compares actual values against expected parameters, and automatically triggers exception handling routines when deviations are detected. This closed-loop feedback mechanism ensures rapid response to maintain safety while minimizing operational delays.
2Productivity
If automated pumping sequence control is implemented, then continuous operation is enabled reducing delays, but complex monitoring and exception handling systems are required
Solution Approach 1:
The control system is divided into modular components: sensors for data collection, a control unit for processing, and pre-programmed exception handling routines. Each component performs a specific function, making the overall complex system manageable through segmentation into independent, testable modules that can be maintained separately.
Solution Approach 2:
Exception handling routines are pre-programmed and tested before deployment. When exceptions occur, the system executes predetermined responses rather than requiring real-time decision-making, simplifying the monitoring complexity while maintaining continuous productive operation.
3Loss of time
If exception handling is automated to resolve common issues without manual intervention, then delays are reduced, but the system must accurately detect and differentiate various exception types
Solution Approach 1:
Different sensors and detection methods are deployed针对specific exception types based on their characteristics. Each exception category (equipment failure, wellbore condition change, etc.) has dedicated monitoring parameters and detection thresholds, enabling accurate local化的 detection without requiring a single complex universal detector.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of controlling a pumping sequence of a fracturing fleet at a wellsite. A managing application executing on a computer in the control van can retrieve the pumping sequence from a local or remote storage computer. The managing application can establish an electronic communication link to receive sensor data from a plurality of fracturing units. The managing application can control the plurality of fracturing units with a stage script with multiple sequential instructions for a pumping stage of a pumping sequence while receiving one or more periodic data sets from the plurality of fracturing units wherein the data sets are indicative of the current state of the pumping stage of the pumping sequence.