Development of Oilfield Composite Systems - Test-Verified Design Solutions
Authors: Galle Gary L. , Whitehead Justin M. 
Published: October 2008

The drilling and production of oil and gas is beginning to take place in greater and greater water depths. With increased water depths, conventional materials are becoming impractical as total system weights exceed the limits of current vessel and production system designs. Use of advanced, lightweight materials such as composites allow for increased water depth for a given vessel design. This paper addresses a methodology used to transfer the current focus of exhaustive prototype development programs to test-verified designed solutions. The foundation of the methodology will be addressed along with actual product development examples and verification testing results.

Due to the complex nature of composites, the increased benefit achieved through optimization, and the requirement for a esign cycle equivalent to that of conventional materials, it is necessary to automate the design and analysis process wherever possible. Newly developed analytical systems and tools have been developed and are discussed. Using this state of the art expert system and knowledge-base technology, design cycles can be made on the order of two to three hours instead of two-three months. With this technology, customized composite designs can be analytically verified more accurately in a fraction of the time, providing an optimized design that will require minimal testing. In the petroleum industry, faster new product development is critical to the successful implementation and use of composites.

Introduction

This paper begins by reviewing a common method used in the successful design and implementation of composites. The section, Current Composite Design Cycle, summarizes a method used to develop composites which heavily relies on the coupled use of protyotype testing during the design cyle.

The following section, Test-Verified Design Cycle, introduces an alternative method of composite design currently being used in the development of several oil-field related development projects. Unique to this design cycle technique, the Test-Verified Design Cycle uses a heavier reliance on the early stages of the design cycle and only uses the prototype stage as the final verification of the end product. This method is well suited for the oilfield environment that consists of field-specific requirements and very short design/product cycles.

The remaining section, Field Application, provides an example of how the Test-Verified Design Cycle is being used in actual applications.

Current Composite Design Cycle

The use of composites is becoming more and more prevalent in the oil and gas industry. Numerous successes1,2,3 have occurred which prove that composites can offer overall system savings in many deepwater applications.

A commonly used design cycle in such composite adaptations places heavy reliance on exhaustive prototype testing. In many cases, the use of sub-scale and full-scale prototype testing is tightly coupled with the design and analysis stage. Figure 1 shows a common composite design cycle to produce a new product or design.