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Coiled tubing equipment design
There are several coiled-tubing (CT) equipment manufacturers presently marketing various designs of CT injectors, service tubing reels, and related well-control equipment in the industry today. The injector designs available within the industry include:
- The opposed counter-rotating design
- Chaindrive system
- Arched-chain roller drive
- Single-chain opposed-gripper-drive system
- The sheavedrive system
Equipment design for CT
At present, the predominant equipment design for CT well-intervention and drilling services incorporates the vertically mounted, counter-rotating chaindrive type of injector. For purposes of practical demonstration, the following descriptions of CT equipment focus on the specific unit components supporting the vertical, counter-rotating chaindrive type of injector.
The CT unit is a portable, hydraulically powered service system that is designed to inject and retrieve a continuous string of tubing concentric to larger-inside diameter (ID) production tubing or casing strings. At the present time, CT manufactured for well intervention and drilling application is available in sizes ranging from 0.750 to 3.500 in. outside diameter (OD). A simplified illustration of a CT unit is shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1—Mechanical elements of a hydraulic CT unit (courtesy of SAS Industries Inc.).
The basic components of a CT unit are:
- Injector and tubing guide arch
- Service reel with CT
- Power supply/prime mover
- Control console
- Control and monitoring equipment
- Downhole CT connectors and bottomhole assembly (BHA) components
- Well-control stack equipment
References
Noteworthy papers in OnePetro
R.E. Frishmuth and J.C. Pursell 1996. Design, Construction, and Use of a Coiled Tubing Drilling Structure for Onshore and Offshore Operations, Offshore Technology Conference, 6 May-9 May 1996. 8228-MS. http://dx.doi.org/10.4043/10.4043/8228-MS
Robert Ewen, Kevin Mackay, and Frank Shepard 2001. Development of Computer-Controlled Hybrid CT Drilling Units, SPE/ICoTA Coiled Tubing Roundtable, 7-8 March 2001. 68440-MS. http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/68440-MS
External links
See also
PEH:Coiled-Tubing_Well_Intervention_and_Drilling_Operations