Patent Abstract:
A pressure orienting swivel arrangement includes a freely rotatable weight assembly to orient to gravity prior to being urged to a fixed position. In the fixed position, a pin adapter is reactably interengagable with the weight assembly to orient the pin adapter to the weight assembly without reorienting the weight assembly from gravity. A method for orienting a downhole tool is also included.

Full Description:
BACKGROUND 
     In the hydrocarbon recovery industry boreholes are drilled to access hydrocarbon bearing formations for the purpose of extracting target fluids be the fluid gas, oil or a combination of fluids. While traditionally boreholes were drilled substantially vertically and therefore orientation of a bottom hole assembly could be relatively accurately tracked by tracking the orientation of the string at the surface, orientation in highly deviated or horizontal wells that are more common today is difficult and accuracy is limited. This is due in part to the frictional factors encountered as a string of several thousand feet is driven into the low side borehole wall. Because it is difficult to measure the friction all the way up the string, it is difficult to resolve the forces that act on the string and affect actual orientation downhole relative to apparent orientation at the surface. 
     Being able to accurately determine orientation in the downhole environment facilitates many operational interests. Therefore, the art is always receptive to new methods and apparatus that improve or enable orientation in the downhole environment. 
     SUMMARY 
     A pressure orienting swivel arrangement including a weight assembly and a pin adapter reactably interengagable with the weight assembly to orient the pin adapter to the weight assembly. 
     A pressure orienting swivel arrangement including a housing, a spring compression mandrel within the housing, a spring disposed about the spring compression mandrel, a weight assembly rotatably supported in the housing, and a pin adaptor rotatably supported within the housing and reactably interengagable with the weight assembly to accept a torque from the weight assembly. 
     A method for orienting a downhole tool including gravitationally orienting a weight assembly, interengaging a pin adapter and inducing rotation in the pin adapter with the weight assembly. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       Referring now to the drawings wherein like elements are numbered alike in the several Figures: 
         FIG. 1  is a cross section view of one embodiment of a pressure orienting swivel arrangement in a non-actuated position; 
         FIG. 2  is a cross section view of one embodiment of a pressure orienting swivel arrangement in an actuated position; 
         FIG. 3  is a perspective view of a weight assembly of the arrangement; 
         FIG. 4  is a perspective view of a gear ring of the arrangement; 
         FIG. 5  is a perspective view of a pin adaptor of the arrangement. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     Referring to  FIGS. 1 and 2 , a non-actuated position and an actuated position, respectively, of one embodiment of a Pressure Orienting Swivel arrangement  10  is illustrated. A comparison of the locations of various component of the arrangement in the two figures will provide an overview for the following description of the individual components and their interactions. 
     Referring to  FIG. 1 , and beginning at an uphole end of the arrangement (left side of the figure as per convention) a top sub  12  can be seen. Top sub  12  is fixedly attached to a spring housing  14  at a threaded connection  16 . The top sub  12  includes an inside surface  18  that defines the outer most region of a fluid pathway  20  through which pressurization fluid is applied to the arrangement  10  when actuation thereof is desired. Further the top sub  12  includes a seal recess  22  receptive to a seal such as an o-ring (not specifically depicted due to scale, and not needed due to knowledge in the art). Slidably disposed within the inside surface  18  is a seal sleeve  24 . 
     The seal sleeve  24  is attached at a downhole end thereof to a spring compression mandrel  26  at an interconnection point  28 . The seal sleeve  24  provides a spring shoulder  30  upon which an uphole end  32  of a spring  34  bears during actuation of the arrangement  10 . A downhole end  36  of the spring  34  bears against a bushing  38  or other surface capable of supporting the spring  34  when under compression during actuation of the arrangement. 
     Adjacent the bushing  38  and through the spring housing  14  is one or more fluid displacement pathway(s)  40  (two shown) within each of which is a filter material  42  in one embodiment of the arrangement  10 . This provision allows for fluid to move into or out of the arrangement while the arrangement is being actuated or released from the actuated position to avoid the potential for hydraulic locking or inhibition of movement of the components of the arrangement  10  due to hydraulic forces created by fluid in the arrangement. 
     Downhole of the spring housing  14  and fixedly attached thereto is an extension sleeve  44 . The extension sleeve supports a pin  48  fitted to rotationally constrain a gear ring  72 . Within the extension sleeve  44 , a weight assembly  50  is supported on the spring compression mandrel  26  at bearing  46  and bearing  52 . Between the bearings  46  and  52 , the weight assembly is balanced axially to promote a relatively frictionless rotational movement within the arrangement  10 . This is a useful attribute for the arrangement because it facilitates the self-orientation of the weight assembly  50 . Orientation of the weight assembly  50  is important to the function of the arrangement  10 . Further the construction of the weight assembly  50  facilitates operation of the arrangement  10 . Referring to  FIG. 3 , an enlarged view of the weight assembly  50  is provided for clarity of its construction. The weight assembly comprises a cage  53 , a weight  54 , a key  56  and an orientation torque producer  58 . It will be appreciated from the figure that the weight  54  extends, in this embodiment, about one half of the cage  53 . The purpose of the weight is to cause that the weight assembly  50  orient itself to gravity. In a horizontal or highly deviated well, this ensures that an operator can count on a correct orientation of at least one component in the wellbore. Because the orientation of the weight assembly  50  is known, a desired orientation of another component of the arrangement  10  can be set using the weight assembly  50  as the known. The weight assembly rotates itself only and therefore does not suffer from the drawbacks of prior art devices that have attempted to use an offset weight to orient target tools. Rather the weight assembly as disclosed herein has an overall mass that is substantially concentrated in the weight  54  and therefore only a very small percentage in the cage  53  and key  56 . 
     Importantly then the weight assembly also features an orientation torque producer  58  that functions to orient another component of the arrangement  10  to the weight assembly  50 . It is this function that allows an operator to set a desired orientation of this separate component. The component is a pin adapter  70  identified in  FIGS. 1 ,  2  and  5 . Because the weight assembly will find gravity and the pin adapter will orient to the weight assembly, a specifically positioned tool attached to the pin adapter  70  will have a known orientation when the arrangement is actuated. 
     Referring for a moment back to  FIGS. 1 and 2 , further components of the arrangement  10  are identified to improve clarity of the discussion regarding the actuation of the arrangement. A gear ring  72  is positioned at a downhole end of extension sleeve  44  and is pinned in place rotationally by pin  48 . Reference to  FIG. 4  makes clear the construction of gear ring  72  including a plurality of gear teeth  74  and lead in ramps  76  to help facilitate engagement therewith by the key  56  to prevent rotational movement of the weight assembly when that assembly is engaged with the gear ring  72 . Prevention of rotational movement of the weight assembly means that all of the torque production capability of the orientation torque producer  58 , in this embodiment a helical profile, is available to turn the pin adapter  70 . The pin adapter rotates within a pin adapter housing  78  which itself is joined to the extension sleeve  44  by a stop sleeve  80 . The pin adapter  70 , in this embodiment is supported within the housing  78  by a radial type bearing  82  and a thrust bearing  84 . A seal  86  is provided between the pin adapter  70  and the spring compression mandrel  26  to seal the arrangement and working with seal  22  for pressure based operation. 
     At a downhole end of the arrangement  10  ( FIGS. 1 ,  2  and  5 ) is a pin adapter tail  88  that features an orientation indicator such as a groove  90  that will always be in a position opposed to gravity when the arrangement is actuated because of the interaction between pin adapter  70  and weight assembly  50 , which occurs at torque producer  58  of assembly  50  and a complementary profile  92  in this embodiment. The groove thus allows an operator to connect a tool at a specific desired orientation in the wellbore. One such tool is, as illustrated here, a perforation nozzle sub  94  having nozzle receptacles  96 . It will of course be understood that any tool could be attached to the pin adapter as desired or required for a particular application. 
     In operation, the arrangement  10  is assembled at surface with a tool  94  oriented to the groove  90  so that the tool will have the ultimate desired orientation in the wellbore when the arrangement reaches a target depth and achieves the actuated position. The arrangement is then run in the hole until it reaches the target location. Pressure supplied to the pathway  20  acts upon the arrangement to urge a number of its components in the downhole direction. These are the seal sleeve  24 , the spring compression mandrel  26  and the weight assembly  50 . The spring  34  is compressed by spring shoulder  30  of the seal sleeve  24  during this operation. Since gravity based orientation of the weight assembly  50  has already occurred, since it is continuous until engagement of the key  56  with the gear ring  72 , downhole movement of the weight assembly causes the engagement of the key  56  between a pair of teeth of the gear ring  72 . Since the gear ring itself is restricted in rotational movement by the pin  48 , the weight assembly will now also be prevented from moving rotationally. It is noted that a reduction in pressure on the arrangement  10  will allow the key  56  to disengage from the gear ring and thereby restore rotational movement to the weight assembly under action of the spring  34  but too, a repressurization will reengage the key  56  with the gear ring. This can be repeated as desired. Importantly, and as noted above, the gear ring maintaining the weight assembly rotationless means that upon further pressure based downhole movement of the weight assembly and engagement of the torque producer  58  with the pin adapter  70 , all of the torque generated is transferred to the pin adapter  70 . Torque on the order of about 70 ft lbs can be generated in one embodiment hereof upon the application of 5,000 psi. 
     While preferred embodiments have been shown and described, modifications and substitutions may be made thereto without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, it is to be understood that the present invention has been described by way of illustrations and not limitation.

Technology Classification (CPC): 4