July 2014 Tube Products International
29
After 25 successful years,
PIPE Ltd (Prestige Industrial Pipework Equipment)
has now ceased trading, following a
shareholders disagreement
But don’t worry....
We are pleased to inform you that the
Tagliaferro’s (TAG’S) and several former
PIPE employees have started a new company: . . .
Offering you the following products:
Our new mailing address:
UNIT 18 WEDGWOOD ROAD,
BICESTER, OXFORD,
ENGLAND OX26 4UL
Visit:
or contact us:
0044 (0) 1869 324144
PLUS…
Exciting new products & solutions on the way
Heavy-duty landing system for
ultra-deep offshore
The offshore industry’s current trend
is driving towards ultra-deepwater
wells (up to 12,000ft water depth),
combined with deeper total depths.
In order to be able to set and run
larger and heavier casing strings with
hook loads approaching or exceeding
2.5 million lb, an innovative heavy-duty
landing system has been developed by
Vallourec Drilling Products.
Such landing string systems must be
capable of landing heavy loads while
ensuring the absence of damage due
to the slips (a device used to grip the
drill string and suspend it in the rotary
table). Under extremely heavy loads,
such as those seen during deepwater
operations, the slips can damage the
pipes, and in the worst case might even
completely crush the pipe section; this
phenomenon is called ‘slip crushing’.
The new CrushFree™ Landing String
consists of a pipe with a thick-walled
high-strength material section to ensure
slip crush resistance in the slip area, a
lightweight tube, and rotary shouldered
connections. One of the current
operational challenges with existing
heavy-duty landing strings is linked to
the positioning of the slips, in particular
when using extended slip designs. The
limited length of the slips area requires
additional time for proper positioning
and set up. To address these issues,
a new slip proof section design has
been developed: the combination of an
extended crush proof section and the
absence of a heat affected zone in that
particular area decreases running time
while completely eliminating the risk of
setting the slips on a weak point.
The ‘Spiri-Reinhold pipe crushing’
formula has been used to design this
system. However, considering the
approximation of this model’s results,
crushing performance has been
assessed using finite element analysis,
as well as physical tests performed with
a specifically designed pulling unit.
Two full-scale tests have been
performed on CrushFree Landing String
joints, in order to assess the product
performance. The first test consisted
of applying 2.5 million lb load on
both the slips and elevator areas. The
results have shown the absence of any
dimensional change, proving that the
material has not yielded in any part of
the landing string joint. The second test
aimed to pull the material up to failure;
the CrushFree Landing String joint was
pulled up to 4.4 million lb, which was the
maximum capacity of the pulling unit.
Such a load exceeded the yield tension
of the tube and elevator shoulder, as it
theoretically should. However, the load
did not break either the tube or the pipe
section gripped by the slips.
Vallourec Drilling Products
– USA
