Article Archive Contact Features List 10

Media Pack Subscribe Privacy Policy

Construction Computing Online Training Map Recruitment

News

Review

From CAD User Mechanical Magazine  Vol 22 No 6 - JUNE/JULY 2009

SolidWorks was able to provide a complete solution to Sanjel Corporation, enabling them to design, test and collaborate on their custom-built SCM Skids and shorten production time from 2 years to 6 months

The fascinating thing about writing about different industries and the software they use is that you come across facets of those industries that you previously had no idea about. A case in point is the use of cement in the oil industry. We are all very familiar with the drilling gantries, the pipelines, the valves, and all of the other paraphernalia that goes with getting the stuff out of the ground in an orderly fashion - but cement? I suspect a lot of you are going to learn something here as well!

There are three main areas where cement is used in oilfields: performing primary cementing tasks, such as cementing the steel casing in the well; remedial cementing, like cement squeezes where a target zone in the oil well's column is slated for production; or executing well kills to keep the pressure of the formation fluids from entering the well bore.

These are precision tasks, and the oil well operators need to deliver cement to sensitive and critical areas, ensuring the cement slurry flows smoothly through the unit's piping, which consists of T's, elbows, valves, and other fittings. Any "dead zones" would allow settling of the slurry, creating a plug in the piping and affecting the operation of the unit. Any equipment failure can mean a delay in petroleum production or severe damage to the oil well, costing time and money.

That's why special cement mixing and delivery systems - SCM Skids - have been developed, and why one driller in the Middle East turned to Sanjel Corporation to supply a robust, redundant cementing skid. Sanjel, based in Calgary, Canada, designed and manufactured a cementing skid utilising its SCM (Sanjel Cyclonic Mixer) cement mixing technology, and, using SolidWorks’ 3D CAD software, were able to produce a working unit in just six months - against a more normal timeframe of 2 years! Establishing oil wells in the Middle East requires a large investment in time, equipment, and money.

Petroleum-producing companies that hire service companies to get their wells going set a high performance standard, demanding zero error and consistent, high levels of success. That's why the equipment they choose has to operate at the same high levels of efficiency.

Part of the design process, therefore, involved the use of SolidWorks FEA and flow simulation software to establish two major factors in the design - that it would be strong enough to withstand the rigorous conditions it would have to operate in, and that it could maintain a steady flow of cement 'slurry' through the unit's piping.

Sanjel's SCM skid is a self-contained mobile unit that can be transported on a large winch truck from site to site over unpaved desert roads or on the back of a low-boy trailer on paved highway. In developing the custom cementing unit, Sanjel used SolidWorks Simulation software to ensure it would be rugged enough to withstand being loaded up onto the back of a winch truck, being lifted onto a cargo ship by crane, sustaining impacts from vehicles and machinery, and enduring conditions commonly encountered in the oilfield. SolidWorks simulation applications allow users to test Assembly Simulation, studying the interactions of assembly components on-screen, before incurring the costs of physical prototypes. The software can simulate static or dynamic loads to evaluate a design's performance under stress, strain, and displacement.

Mechanism Simulation allows users to apply a wide variety of physics-based models to simulate real-world operating conditions for your design, to check for colliding parts. To enhance understanding of the mechanical forces driving designs, users can output numerical and graphic data of results, as well as being able to animate tests. SolidWorks Flow Simulation software was used to help ensure the cement slurry flows smoothly through the T's, elbows, valves, and other fittings of the unit's piping. The Simulation software was the first and easiest fluid-flow simulation and thermal analysis program to be fully embedded within SolidWorks software.

Using computational Fluid Dynamics methods, users can simulate liquid and gas flow in real world conditions, running "what if" scenarios and quickly analysing the effects of fluid flow, heat transfer, and related forces on immersed or surrounding components. The sort of fluids that can be analysed range from air, water, liquid chemicals and gases to juice, ice cream, honey, plastic melts, toothpaste, blood, and others - and now cement!

For this particular application, one of the crucial features of the software was its ability to calculate the pressure drop on pipes using surface roughness values. I would strongly suspect (not being a CFD engineer) that cement comes under the category of non- Newtonian fluids like blood, toothpaste, and plastic melts (it’s all meat and drink to this analysis software, anyway!). Used early on in the design process, such tools aid in design optimisation using CFD-based flow and dimensional parameters.

Design engineers were able to use SolidWorks’ eDrawings email-enabled design communication software to help all of the people involved in the project, from welders to executives, to see, understand and evaluate the design of the cementing skid. eDrawings is a free design review tool that allows anybody to view, print and review - or comment on any type of eDrawing file. And, finally, the sheet metal package in SolidWorks allowed designers to provide welders with quick and accurate pipe templates for various copes found at piping joints within minutes. It would have taken them about an hour to generate each one by hand.

"Our designers and the fabrication team collaborated in real time around SolidWorks 3D models," said Kris Sato, senior mechanical designer at Sanjel Corporation. "This helped us deliver quickly on an important product that could easily have taken two years to build. SolidWorks software gave everyone involved a clear picture of what we were working on and working toward. SolidWorks kept us moving fast."

SolidWorks also helped Sanjel collaborate with suppliers. "The SCM skid utilizes OEM components such as its engines," he continued. "Having OEM vendors that also use SolidWorks allowed us to drop in their engine/transmission/radiator assembly into our skid layout. This saved us time and provided a more accurate layout that ensured that we could confidently design around OEM components without worrying about fit." Sanjel relies on authorized SolidWorks reseller Automated Design Systems for ongoing software training, implementation and support. www.solidworks.com

Review

Click here for a Print Friendly Version

©2006 Business and Technical Communications Ltd. All rights reserved.
No part of this site may be reproduced without written permission of the owners.
www.CADUser.com