World's First 3D Printed Functional Polymeric Sealing Solutions
Authors: Zhong Allan , Phan Anthony , Glaesman Chad 
Published: October 2020

Over the past 10 years, additive manufacturing (3D printing) has been rigorously researched and selectively applied in various applications in the oil and gas industry. Most of these applications involve metallic and plastic materials. There are currently no 3D-printed sealing elements to the best of our knowledge and for good reasons. Most seals, such as O-rings or packer elements, have simple geometries and typically, there is no need for 3D printing of these seals. Even if one desires to print polymeric seals, few 3D-printed polymers can meet the resilience and elasticity requirements. The reasons we developed 3D-printed polymeric seals for both simple and complex geometries are mainly two-fold. First is the need to develop seals with internal/external geometric features that can control their own deployment, which is especially important for high expansion packer or bridge plug sealing elements. Second, the practical application of well intervention is ad hoc, thus the need to have on-demand customized manufacturing of sealing solutions for rapid response services is significant.

Our sealing elements are printed through a photopolymerization method called Stereolithography (SLA) using proprietary resins. Standard testing methods are used to evaluate the printed polymer – which demonstrated mechanical properties suitable for sealing applications, such as modulus comparable to common rubbers, high elongation at break, high fracture toughness, multiple glass transition temperatures, and broad thermal stability range. Printed O-rings are first tested for comparisons to common commercially available O-rings at various temperatures. Sealing elements with complex internal features are printed and tested for both element setting and differential pressure at room temperature and elevated temperature.

A new polymer technology has enabled the creation of the world's first O-Rings and packer elements with complex internal features. Lab tests have shown that the printed O-Ring has super low temperature sealing capabilities while maintaining comparable performance with Hydrogenated acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (HNBR) at elevated temperature in typical high pressure sealing configurations. The printed high expansion packer element was set in a tubing at room temperature and at elevated temperature, with negligible effect. The packer element deployed uniformly, achieved full contact against the tubular, and showed great rebound characteristic when unloaded.

Printed O-rings and packer elements meet all quality control requirements from surface finish to dimensions. From O-ring tests, we observed that 1) printed O-rings with off-shelf polyether ether ketone (PEEK) backups performed competitively with common O-rings made from HNBR, and 2) printed O-rings have much better performance at low temperatures than most common O-ring grades. The printed elements with internal features are tested at room temperature and elevated temperature. The elements set well at a high expansion ratio and provided seal under differential pressure with a large extrusion gap. The 3D-printed polymeric seals demonstrated, in lab test conditions, that they have great potential for on-demand field services as well as for high-performance high-expansion packer elements.

The proprietary materials enable rapid prototyping of the world's first functional polymeric O-rings and packer elements with complex internal features. In oilfield well intervention applications, diagnoses are made and solutions are tailored for specific applications to achieve optimal outcomes. Since not all well conditions are the same, the well intervention practitioner must either be well-equipped with tools in their toolbox or make compromises in a rapid response situation. By pairing with adaptive manufacturing of metallic components and sealing elements, the execution of well service is much more comprehensive without compromising speed.