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Oilfield Technology
August
2015
Fromaerospacetodrilling
To help solve downhole tool problems, LORD Corporation
applied the analytical capabilities it developed for the
aerospace market to the oil and gas industry’s motion and
vibration problems. The company’s engineers realised that
the oil and gas industry faced the same problems with their
drilling tools as the aerospace industry did with heat, shock and
vibration in flight operations.
Downhole tools cope with similar materials, temperatures
and conditions encountered by fixed-wing aircraft. Aviation
components, as a result of the rapid changes in flight altitudes,
are in contact with extremely hot engine temperatures, and
then are subjected to very low temperatures. This fluctuating
range of temperatures along with the high shock loads from
turbulence and landing makes shock and vibration isolation
and control critically important for aircraft equipment.
In aerospace applications, depending on the location of the
mount, it may be subject to jet fuel, hydraulic oil, or de-icing
agents. Similarly, in a dowhhole environment, isolators may
be exposed to drilling muds ranging from water-based, to
petroleum-based (chemically similar to jet fuel and/or hydraulic
oil), or brine based (chemically similar to de-icing agents).
The products developed for the oil and gas industry,
including isolation mounts and snubber/isolators, use
proprietary elastomers specifically designed for oil resistance
and/or high-temperature environments depending on the
requirements of each application. These solutions help
to mitigate shock and vibration that can destroy sensitive
measurement equipment on downhole tools.
Isolatingsensitiveequipment
The need for a solution capable of isolating electronic
equipment from shock and vibration led LORD engineers to
apply their aerospace expertise to address the problems of
downhole and surface systems. Among these solutions are
Micro-Mounts™, high-performance isolators small and soft
enough to protect individual electronic components allowing
isolation at the circuit board level. The flexible mounts have
been used successfully in satellites and military aircraft,
and are now available to provide the same performance
characteristics for downhole tool applications.
Micro-Mounts can be used as a direct replacement
for hard standoffs or as an alternative to potting. Made
of (broad-temperature range (BTR®) silicone bonded to
stainless steel, these mounts are designed for applications
requiring consistent performance at extreme temperatures.
This combination of high-end silicone with stainless-steel
components assures easy installation in a wide range of
applications.
They reduce board-level acceleration levels by
2 to 200 times compared to hard-mounting components.
The isolators can be designed to meet unique downhole
conditions:
Ì
Temperature-rated to 350˚F continuous operations
(400˚F peak).
Ì
Individual mounts support 0.1 lb.
Ì
Available in nut/nut, post/nut and post/post
configurations in many common threads (#2-56, #4-40,
M3).
Ì
Standard hardware.
As an example of their effectiveness, Micro-Mounts have
been successfully employed in a perforation application
for one of LORD’s clients. In a perforation operation, many
controlled explosions are used to create holes in the
production casing to allow the target hydrocarbon to flow
from the pay zone into the well bore. These explosions,
similar to gunshots, impart severe shock loads onto
Figure 1.
Micro-Mount isolators are designed for applications requiring
consistent performance at extreme temperatures.
Figure 2.
Micro-Mount isolators are small and soft enough to protect
individual components at the circuit board level.
Figure 3.
LORD snubbers offer the reliability anddurability needed to
isolateMWDelectronics fromshock and vibration.
