If you are an interested professional, or just want the inside scoop on the geology of the famous Central City / Black Hawk Colorado gold producing area, I recommend the descriptions printed on area USGS Geologic maps, which include bibliographic data, as a good starting point.
For example:
(1) the East Portal, CO, Quadrangle (contains a geological explanation - the East Portal, Colorado Quad. is northwest of Central City Quad),
(ii) the Central City, CO Quad, (contains cross sections and a good rock type legend),
(iii) the Black Hawk, CO, Quad (contains a good geological explanation).
Both the Central City, and the Black Hawk Quad Geology Map pdfs, as well as other relevant data are posted on my Wordpress Petroleum Reserves Blog, here:
http://reservesblogpetroleum.wordpress.com/
I don't have a copy of the East Portal, CO Quad Geology Map, at hand, presently, otherwise, I'd post that one as well, of course.
This is an innovation-attempt that was suggested by the above photos of the "Bluenose", a famous sailing ship. The angle of the sails, and their twist, look as though they funnel wind, in part, in the upwards direction.
In general, that affect, shared by most all conventional sailboats, would create a downward force, and require more buoyancy force in response, and thus, ships sit comparatively lower in the water, slowing them down.
Several approaches seem suitable for countering this circumstance. In the video link shown below, approximate lift and drag vectors are shown, from the wind action upon sails. A conventional mast and sail is shown, along with three enhancements.
The enhanced configurations make use of what the video "signage" describes as "Masts Canted" - the masts actually are tilted sideways, on the side that is toward the wind. Then, the masts/sails are rotated as is usually the case, with typical sails, to take advantage of the wind direction.
This geometry changes the direction of the lift and drag forces, and actually seems to produce forces that somewhat lift the ship in the water, effectively making it lighter. This would increase speed and efficiency.
One might ask, "However, what about when the ship is heeled-over, at an angle, during operation?" The answer appears to be that by contrast, the angles of the forces still remain more favorable, although for lesser angles of heel and mast tilt, more heeling over of the ship means progressively increasing sail exposure, which is counter to the predictable, safe behavior of conventional sails. Conventional sails, when the ship tilts, expose less and less sail-area to the wind, so capsizing forces are lessened as the ship tilts.
A possible fix, would be to have the tilted sails equipped with a control mechanism, that would quickly release the bottom edge of the sails, or pay-out-line to accomplish a similar result, if a wind gust quickly rises. Thereby, with less wind force upon a less stiff sail, the need for a stronger righting "moment" would be reduced. The righting moment is the torque-like force acting to bring the ship back upright.
The reason for the curved top of the mast, is that when the mast is canted, the top portion can become the leading edge as winds shift. I added a canted conventional mast for comparison, and as I suspected after some virtual-experimentation, it appears that a properly trimmed, canted conventional mast would work very well in this configuration as well.
Since the Blogger GUI is great otherwise, but the video resolution is much lower than desired, I thankfully was able to upload a much, much better video via Youtube at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_vBF5ei2sI
Using full screen and stop action is recommended for viewing the video.
Thank you.
Regards, rjf
P.S. Looks like I'm not the first to come up with the tilted mast idea.
Look at the angle of the newly designed Wing-Sail in the picture below, with respect to the catamaran hull.
It appears that the wing-sail is somewhat canted, and that much more of a cant angle might cause the light-weight craft to take-off and skip across the water downwind.
The skipping wouldn't work out very well, in general, unless some control means were created, because boats rely on the water action upon the hull, rudder and keel for both (i) forces offsetting those not helping move the craft forward, and (ii) directional authority for the craft's hull.
Yesterday, relevant SEC Oil and Gas reporting regulations were downloaded and compiled into a MS Word document.
The set is thought to be fairly complete, however my search was not exhaustive, thus there might be applicable sections not present ( I think the odds here are low that there are other “material” Reg. sections, but the matter is important, so don’t take that for granted, necessarily ).
The definitions portion, as well as examples of reporting forms, and the descriptions of the information to be included, all are informative. The document is available on my "reserves" blog for Free Download at: http://reservesblogpetroleum.wordpress.com/
From the “higher plain” wizardry of the aerospace-design “numbers” folks, comes this excellent technique for making complicated choices, in a very quick, straightforward and clear manner.
When faced with a lot of choices (for example, picking a car model from among SUV’s, Sports Cars, Luxury Cars, Hyrbrids etc.), and also, considering a lot of options (such as capability, accessory options, economy, price, etc.), this method quantifies the combined importance, and generates a single number-figure for each of your possibilities.
Therefore, you can size-up the choices side by side (for example, the Prius Hybrid (a small, green, economic vehicle) would score 77%, perhaps, and the Range Rover Super Deluxe (a fictional large, high powered SUV) might score 75% – if, when you set-up the solution, you placed more significance on city fuel economy, and less on 4-wheel-drive / snow-performance.
This method has a broad range of application, across many industries and institutions, and if anyone would be interested in co-authoring a “FOM for Dummies” book or clone, let me know!
Send your email address for both a FREE spreadsheet and .pdf file – showing an FOM example.
With a little graphics help from the Bing Search background picture, here's a potential fix for some of the visual blight that has occurred with minerals development. The caption of the picture is supposed to say, "Which color road-gravel would you use?"
The United States BLM, on land that the federal government controls in this regard, performs some visual-environmental regulation/recommendation. Most of their example materials, show landscape-impacts that are much less severe, than shown in the photos.
I myself, have suggested to the Sierra Club (after joining for this specific purpose, and, by the way, not receiving my nice free leather backpack, promo gift) - that Sierra Club partner with some exploration and production organizations, with the intent of drafting some approved, well-location landscape-architecture appearance themes/templates. If I were them, I'd see about getting a royalty for the plans - I guess they're not interested in providing constructive criticism.
By using an approved-by-Sierra-Club format for energy operations (domestically and internationally), a lot would be accomplished toward dispelling complaints, and working to mitigate perceptions, such as those nurtured by propaganda media depicting the oil industry as the Stereo-typical South American Dictator's Henchmen raping the landscape, leaving the local villagers in an oil- filthy, squalor of poverty, and so forth.
However, Sierra Club isn't the only option. There are many, responsible environmental org's around, (and nature - oriented companies, as well) with name-brand clout, whose approved-facilities-layouts would appeal to the international, environmentally conscious citizen - ideally, at a small cost commensurate with the currently-existing surface-work, surface-rights & reparations expenditures.
Maybe a year and a half ago, I was looking at the solar panel installation atop a European Auto Repair shop in North, North Boulder. I thought, wow, if those panels were mirrors, and were put into a parabola, then they could concentrate massive solar energy into/onto a central shaft that would have a fluid/steam flow receiving the heat.
Great idea, and maybe a lot cheaper than photovoltaics, but you'll need a steam engine to have electric power - with that specific scheme - or thermoelectric or some other sort-of exotic tech.
However, what if you merely wanted the solar power captured, the resulting hot water/steam, and maybe play around with the results a little?
Okay, makes sense so far, unless you live up North, where they might actually really need the technology, and in that case, you'ld be losing a lot of heat to the atmosphere through the classic, three types of heat transfer from the hot center rod, to the cold air - those being of course, radiant, convective and conductive heat losses.
So, I thought up my idea of the concentrator again last night, and realized a clear outer tube would be just the ticket. The radiant sun energy would pass through, if the clarity was good, and the cold outside air would be kept at bay.
There is a classic heat transfer problem where if you apply surrounding insulation to a pipe, then you increase its total radius and surface area, and those affects actually operate to promote, rather than reduce, heat transfer. I think I remember that one of the solutions to that matter, is for the insulating material to have a very good "R-rating" - (which isn't the exact term-of-art, but you get the idea).
I didn't rework that pipe-insulation problem, numbers-wise for this application, and come up with a quantitative recommended solution for the radius, so you might have to find another source if you want to fine tune the performance. Additional improvements would be to (A) either load the annulus with an insulating gas, such as Argon, or else (B) evacuate the annulus air to cut off effects of the primarily conduction and convention from off of the outer tube skin to the ambient atmospheric temperature difference. These would both reduce how easy it would be for the cold air's temperature to get to the inner copper tube and its water/steam. (The inner copper tube actually should be painted black for Max radiant energy absorption).
This "invention" is free to make, use or sell for the time being, as far as I know at this point ( meaning I solely invented it, but someone else might have already secured the patent rights there-to and thus you and I would be prevented from making / using / selling without permission, while the patent or application is in effect ). - I haven't checked that out. Anyway, if you go ahead and install, please donate $5.00 per installation to the not-for-profit charity of your choice.
If you want a good curve pattern, for when you're using a cheapo jigsaw to cut out the supports from 3/4" plywood, then compute a parabola using Excel whose equation is y = x^2 so one column is x and the next column is x^2 then graph the numbers using Excel, and make sure that the horizontal and vertical scales are identical.
See the attached still image with the parabola graph. Now parabolas have a nice effect for solar work. For sun rays coming parallel down from the top (with respect to the graph), then all rays are reflected into a single point which, for the graph shown, is at the center, top, at coordinates x=0, y=0.5 - That is where the pipe is placed.
Additionally, you might want to angle the entire mirror, or support-assembly (think, instead of having a flat bottom on the supports, making the bottom cut at an angle).
What angle - well I computed this for Denver, and found the best year round average angle was right about 45 deg. elevation and the orientation was directly South. But you'll want the best elevation for your latitude. I wrote a spreadsheet, myself (you can too) that calculates the angle you need.
If you have a solar panel or are an installer, you would want this angle, unless you think you can quess-timate it close enough, or sell a few more panels since the customer doesn't care how many standard 220W $550.00 panels he buys, anyway!?!?Huh??!?!?
All you have to do, is download the Naval Observatory sun elevation and azimuth figures for your geographic location, and the dates/months of interest (I used the first day of each month) and then, for the sample "surface normal" of your mirror (which in the video, would be an arrow pointing straight up - in other words, perpendicular - you get the picture) compute the dot product between the sun position across the span of the day and the mirror surface normal, and find which angle, averaged over the year - or month, exc., would sum to the highest irradiated value.
I was thinking about putting this into a little commercial spreadsheet for sale, but if you want to play around with the tables for personal use, contact me and I'll send you a copy.
There are other, much more sophisticated ways to do this also, among them, the ASME Clear Sky radiation models and others - some are discussed here: http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/pubs/bluebook/appendix.html
Famous Maritime, Reference-Standard of Integrity, "Det Norske Veritas" has released the analysis report regarding the Macondo BOP.
The links to the report are shown in the P.S. section, below.
The numerous pictures in Volume 1 around page 60 show that the rams (the thick metal knife-wedges or blocks, that either cut off, or go around the pipe inside a BlowOut Preventer) don't look totally destroyed.
Looks to me, like they didn't have enough go-power to get through the casing and drill pipe all the way.
I haven't read these reports yet, but a summary I read today in an Oil & Gas Journal blurb, said that DNVeritas claims high rate fluid flow caused the drill pipe to buckle between rams, and contact the side of the BOP at an odd angle or something, and that's the reason for the closure malfunctions.
However, that would basically explain, perhaps, why one or two sets wouldn't close, not all of them. And if the pipe was merely at an angle, and the flowrate was high, pushing back because of the angled deflection, then, when enough ram force was used to sever the pipe metal itself (which is what is supposed to happen with some of the ram sets), then how-much the pipe is resisting (before it is pinned against the opposing jaws, and its compressive & shear strength exceeded at the ram cutter edges) shouldn't matter too much. Maybe what they say, is that the internal buckled pipe bridged against other-than-the-cutter tips on all shearing rams, and the annulars were blown out by abrasive fines flow within the effluent.
Back when this happened, the Government released a reading of the various BOP stage pressures ( image attached - Whoops ! ! - must have had that one on the Laptop that was stolen this summer - image not attached ). These pressure readings, showed about 400 to 700 psi in pressure drop across each ram / preventer stage.
No matter what, I still think the malfunction cause might be, that the rams merely didn't power-through the tubulars as they were mis??-designed to do, with the available source-of-force - Sandy-Blasting flow or not. Whatever happened, the BOP activation didn't blow the rams right through both the casing and drill pipe, and nearly out the other side of the preventer - that's for sure. (Good thing these guys don't make aircraft ejection seats!!!)
What would be a better source of force, and a lot of it? Like an airbag expander - only with more power? ? ? Hydraulics are used now, but they didn't look too impressive here.
This couldn't conceivably be that somebody didn't take into account the operating temperatures for the hydraulic accumulator's gas blanket(s) could it? ? ? ? That sounds WAY TOO obvious, since most that are skilled-in-the-art know that roughly for the expanding air/gas inside the hydraulic accumulators: p1 V1 / T1 = p2 V2 / T2 which, at a lot colder temperatures, makes the available pressures a lot less, if the volumes are the same.
If they really wanted to get way serious about cutting through impossible stuff, they would have probably used something like the dreaded "burning bar" safe-cracking method. Maybe they didn't think that "more-extreme-tech" was needed.
This is a notice of new content on my other blog at: http://reservesblogpetroleum.wordpress.com/
Today's post update:
I have available for sale, a commercial-grade Z-factor spreadsheet, with numerous numeric, industry-standard correlations, and quality comparisons to published standards. Please contact me for details – the price is set at $300.00 USD, per single-address, no-workstation-limit license.
For FREE (for the budget-minded), I have posted below, a nice non-ideal gas, compressibility factor data chart-digitization. This is a free download of an Excel spreadsheet, with the classic Standing and Katz, Z factor chart, digitized, and prepared for your own unlimited personal and commercial use. The file is complete with curve fit and trendline equations for your computation convenience.
Additionally, a minimal-cost-version is for sale, with an “automated” E-Z user interface displaying both English and SI (Metric) units (for EU standards compatability). For users / engineers / technical staff, seeking, for technical quality assurance purposes, a straightforward “open code” format using only spreadsheet cell formulas (no Visual Basic code deciphering), so that computation parameters can be improved and verified (and containing an updated curve digitization), this file is available now.
In contrast to the free download above, immediate functionality is provided. Savings in programming time (at deriving numerical/programmatic processes) will result, and additionally, the architecture / methodology can be used for other applications as well. The price is set at $40.00 USD per open code, single-workstation license. This is no pared-down analytical tool however, – the unique, slider controls, allow the user to quickly look graphically at parameter influences – a scheme still impossible, or cumbersome and awkward with other techniques.
See the slideshow / screenshots below. Contact me for quick response via email. Quantity discounts apply, to get your entire staff on-board, quickly.
This is an innovation that will reduce skin friction between free water, and a hull of a ship, or rowing shell, or racing craft, etc. on the bottom horizontal surface.
Here, a watercraft is shown with an empty, airtight bottom cavity, filled with slightly pressurized air, which pressure requirement would likely be less than 0.5 psi for every foot, measured from the very bottom of the ship to the free water line.
Thus, if the waterline on the side of the boat is 3 ft. above the (flat) bottom, then an air pressure of less than (3 ft x 0.5 psi/ft. =) 1.5 psi would probably be required.
The function of this "submerged air bubble", is to replace the solid bottom surface material of the craft, in the sense of being in contact with the water.
Primarily because gasses are much less viscous than liquids, the friction between free water, and the moving craft, which now has the bottom-bubble's lower surface as its "keel", is much less than what would be found with a solid-surface contacting the water.
The upsides are improved performance and economy in terms of fuel efficiency. The downsides are additional complexity in construction and operation, due to the concave geometry and air system. Also, because of the tendency of fluid/gas interfaces to remain level, and other factors, the conventional hull's resistance to rolling and pitching (and the associated "righting moments" induced by the usually progressively increasing submerged volumes) would be somewhat lessened for small angle deflections.
This affect is mitigated however, by the isolated cavities at the front and sides which, when the ship is tilted, still retain their air volumes, and comparatively-long moment-arm torque-righting effects. The overall affect in serious weather, is not deeemed significant, due to the very shallow depth of the bubble cavity, where for example, its flooding when the bow might emerge from the water, would not be noticeable.
On large ships where little operational pitch or roll is encountered in ordinary conditions, only a short cavity depth would be required - and the potential for fuel savings would be very high.
I filed a provisional patent application in December, and I perhaps should have included this design with the application, since the method was ready to go back then.
This is a very good means of capitalizing upon additionally available wind power, while maintaining the ability to efficiently run under ordinary lower wind speed conditions.
Please contact me via email with any commercial or scientific questions. Thank you.
"A relic from a different age" - I used to recite that phrase all the time, without thinking . . . that might have been from looking at too many National Geographic pictures in the giant yellow N.G. stacks in our basement. (I know what you're thinking and it wasn't to look at the topless natives).
Posted below, are some nice image fragments from a Family Record from the late 1800's or early 1900's. I picked this original document out of a "salvage compilation" today at the Employment First client shop.
It apparently was from a family in Texas, and earliest date of births, etc. were pre-1900.
Click on the images to download them, then right click and save the images on your hard drive (preferably in a loss-less format such as .bmp (too big) or .png). The 4 separate images (each about 5 Mb) must be all placed on the same picture/image of course. Then, use a drawing program to remove the water spots and fill in the areas around and between the paper-tears. Also, add your own pictures to the oval and rectangular frames, if desired.
Voila! And there you have it! A very nice document useful for preservation of your family heritage. A large format color print at a print-shop should cost from $5.00 to $25.00 or so, depending on the size and paper type.
Moreover, you can start a neighborhood business, making these for others. Have the customer supply meaningful photos, of people, places and things, and provide them a nice blank, finished form, showing their own images, to keep for their permanent, framed, family display!
Thank you. Regards, rjf
P.S. I had some trouble with the upload, so I backed down to only uploading one file - the others I'll upload in separate blog posts, above. Thank you.
This is a new design that I generated recently, in a brief spare-time-moment ( I already had the bike animation done for a spinning spokes LED project ).
This is a device to reduce the wind resistance of bicycle riders. I had a good original idea that was cool (discussed below), however, it is much different than this application.
Originally, I wanted to capitalize upon the top-of-wheel spoke-aerodynamic-drag which I believe is nearly proportional to the spoke's velocity^2, ( the spokes at the wheel top are going forward at twice the bike speed with respect to the ground ). The envisioned device would turn the tiny conventional bike spokes, into a sort-of low powered fan, with the outlet directed into the low pressure area behind the front forks, or seat stays. The exit would occur after the spoke airflow direction was reversed 180 deg., thus producing via momentum, a slight forward thrust. This would entail a shrouded wheel/spoke area, and inlet and exit plenums with flow geometry.
I started quick work on this, although being a bike rider, recalled that a far more influential affect with respect to practical speed-sapping wind resistance, is the headwind against the rider's body. So, to save time and effort, I quickly rendered the fairing assembly shown below - and might get back to the wheel work later.
This shows new means to insulate buildings, by placing insulation under the main floor, and/or between upper floors, during the framing construction phase.
I haven't checked into the proprietary aspects of these processes, nevertheless, for the time being, these are free to use without limitation, with my permission, with the caveat that, if possible, $5 be donated to the charity of your choice, for each building, to which the process is applied.
The methods:
Underneath a residential or commercial building main floor, can be an unfinished crawlspace as shown in the video, or else a finished or unfinished basement.
Commonly, the inside surface of the exterior walls of a crawlspace would have foam sheeting glued to the walls for insulation, but the gravel floor, and interior crawlspace itself would remain unheated, and no insulation would exist between the area and the underlayment sheeting of the main floor above.
Similarly, where a building has an unfinished basement, commonly, no insulation would exist between the space and the underlayment sheeting of the main floor above. This would cause heat loss to an unheated basement space, or else to eliminate such loss, require the basement to be heated, even if unoccupied.
By placing an insulation layer between the floor joists of the main floor, impact upon the building heat loss, of an unheated crawlspace or basement, would be lessened (no pun intended).
Installation of such insulation could be easily and conveniently accomplished during the framing phase of building construction, by rolling out suitable insulation equipped with hanger sticks/tabs, suspending the insulation material.
Such sticks/tabs would be of a material either sufficiently thin, such as wire, sheet metal, or else crushable, such as light thin plastic or cardboard, so as not to interfere with the glueing, placement and fastening of the underlayment sheets upon the top of the floor joists, via screws or nails.
Another easy method, would be to tack house wrap to the underside of the joists, and roll out the insulation into the channels.
This video shows a generalized procedure for managing wild well blowout effluent. Historical gusher / blowout stories, occasionally mention the loss of a substantial quantity of the blowing-out/flowing oil.
This procedure shows a method different than the historical approaches.
Here, a storage tank is set in place to collect 100% of the effluent flow, until such time as surface access to the wellbore is again desired. While the well is blowing out, the effluent is collected, and available for transport.
Repeated emptying of the collection tank, allows time to pass, safely, while equipment and plans are readied for well intervention, such as the drilling of a relief well, and/or other well killing processes.
Where flammable natural gas is a fire concern and/or poisonous gas is a toxic substance concern, some means to collect and flare the gas should be arranged to handle the flaring or collection/compression suitably. An example poly tent and flare are shown.
Additional stuctural supports are shown, for use: (A) if the ground is unstable either naturally, or as a result of the the well conditions, and (B) if the collection tank construction/size/configuration requires external bracing.
Regards, Ronald J. Fey, Jr., "Bronco" ron.bronco.fey@live.com
This blog post shows two new core design concepts.
Keep in mind that this is not a 2,500 Phd man year effort, but more like a weekend suggestion by a college-sophmore nuclear engineering major. And even that's a stretch, since concededly, I am probably not, (with respect to this very subject), a sophmore nuc. eng. major.
Yet, in hopes of stirring the imagination & enthusiasm for some-sort of improvement, I am posting this artiste-sketch material.
The video below, is of an overall functional concept, for a reactor configuration for hazardous environments.
Here, unlike present conventional reactor core configurations, if the reactor is shut down in an emergency, the fuel assemblies themselves, retract into safety housings, away from one another, and away from the hot core of the reactor.
The fuel assemblies are long, rectangular components that contain packs of fuel rods which hold the radioactive fuel pellets. A typical commercial electric power nuclear reactor might have 500 or more fuel assemblies. In the video, the fuel assemblies are shown as copper colored, and only one side of core, or one half of the core fuel assemblies are shown. The number of assemblies for one half of a commercial reactor would be approximately 250, and by comparison, the video half-core contains only 165 fuel assemblies. Thus, a slightly larger radius than that shown, would be required for arraying additional assemblies of the same size.
The emergency retraction provides better shielding and neutron moderation and, is additionally effective in reducing the core radioactivity, by virtue of the central core's distance from the important fuel rod radioactivity sources.
The control rods here are rectangular in shape and surround each fuel assembly, and can be retracted or moved into position as needed to control the reactor under normal conditions. The emergency retraction would draw back the control rods along with the complete fuel assemblies. The control rods are shown as red colored in the video.
No power is needed for the emergency process, as the movable fuel assemblies are normally held againt a strong mechanical spring force by active electromagnets. When an emergency occurs, these magnets release either by being manually or automatically turned off via an emergency switch, or else, upon power loss, the electromagnetic attraction drops to a minimal level that is much less than is needed to overcome the strong spring forces. Thus, a somewhat failsafe core radiation reduction occurs. The springs are show as blue colored in the video. The electromagnets are shown as yellow colored in the video.
The problematic radioactive hot core material is here handled in a location, location, location manner.
Again, not relying upon primary or auxillary power for the emergency operation, if the emergency process is enabled, then a sufficient bulk mass of a fluid-moderating-mixture forcefully flows upward through the core area, flushing the hot core substances into specially designed holding silos, for cooling and decontamination.
Not shown in the video, but possibly useful, would be a very high temperature-capacity, gas / liquid separator that could direct the gas and liquid components into separate holding areas.
The quenching fluid-moderating-mixture flows by virtue of hydrostatic pressure & gravity effects from the tall fluid-column storage reservoirs nearby.
Drawbacks of this design, include the following:
The concentric geometry does not provide direct shielding, either in operating or withdrawn position, from the perpendicular radiation emitted directly from the bottom face of the fuel assemblies. This effect is mitigated somewhat by the deep depth of the withdrawal tunnels.
More radial area is required for the overall core area, since room must be made for the moderating withdrawal housing, and the spring retraction components.
The adjacent lengths of the fuel rods are not in close proximity to one another, except within the inner core area, and this design assumes that the fuel rods have a higher radioactivity at the lower end. If this is not the case, then an alternative design, which would latterally move the fuel assemblies together and apart, in a cylindrical or rectanguler arrangement, would be recommended.
That brings us to the second design shown in the blog post above, that of a more or less, conventional 24 x 24 fuel assembly configuration, rectangular in shape.
This design "stuctures" each fuel assembly upon an overhead-crane-works, that permits in an emergency, the length and width-wise expansion of the entire core, in order to space the assemblies away from each other.
Between the cranes and the fuel assemblies, are shown sets of springs that create the length and width-wise expansion upon power outage, or manual/automatic switching. The electromagnet latches that would release to trigger the expansion are not shown.
Older, proven core technologies are shown also in the blog above.
This is a video that I made for instructional purposes - showing how to combine wireline and drillers logs, regional geologic type logs, seismic lines, 3D fault interpretations, and reservoir geometry into a nice, informative display.
Contact me for this .aoi file, including the animation tracts and/or for detailed instructions for using the free AOI CAD/Animation application.
I authored a new, probability-based reserves calculation spreadsheet-version. The improved user interface, graphics and numeric results are available now. Contact me for details, and get a head start on that learning curve comfort level.
Flange the Wellhead? ? ? This video shows the upper portion of a subsea wellhead, directly above which, connection with the bottom of the BOP would occur.
Reality-Caveat A - The video's wellhead components were modelled using the Macondo Wellhead rough illustration shown in the blog post below. During creation of the video, the length of the main tubular was extended vertically making room for the Clam-Shell Flange. Clearance issues would of course be critical, with respect to how much vertical pipe is available at the upper surface of the wellhead, where connection to the BOP occurs.
Reality-Caveat B - Note that typically, if the procedure sequence shown in the video were used, a flange assembly would conceivably be able to be fit entirely over the top of the cut-off casing. This would not require the Clam-Shell Flange component.
However, as opposed to the event sequence shown in the video, a wellhead Clam-shell Flange might be very useful where the blow-out flow is first restricted by a damaged BOP, or damaged tubulars up above the wellhead. Here, the Clam-Shell Flange could conceivably be affixed prior to cut-off, which after installation, would facilitate a very quick process of cutting-off and immediately sealing. This could take place soon after the Clam-Shell Flange was attached.
Reality-Caveat C - The cutter wheel shown in the video is a large diameter unit, and although it is merely a "special effect" displaying the operation, a similar "spokes" configuration would allow effluent flow through the blade, during operation. This would reduce tangential stresses from binding of the blade-sides against the cut surfaces, and also bending stresses resulting from the blade acting like its own wellhead cap. Note that if such a plain, flat, cap were to be used, then the large diameter of the span would necessitate a much greater than typical "blade" thickness if much pressure differential were present. For example, a pressure differential of a mere 4000 psi (BOP ratings are commonly 5 to 15 thousand psi) with a 30 inch diameter tubular, would require a cap capable of containing an upward vertical force of approx. 2.83 million lbs.
Reality-Caveat D - The general scheme shown in the video, of having miscellaneous sized "fish" or "junk tubulars" within the wellbore that would impede a clean and simple cut off of the entire pipe, would be consistent with the unpredictable nature of possible initial wild-well event damage.
Reality-Caveat E - The video shows a conceptual procedure for mechanically (using nuts and bolts) attaching a flange directly to the wellhead assembly. If a device such as the Clam-Shell flange, were actually to be used, in addition to the configuration and process shown, it would be recommended that gripping chocks be added to the Clam-Shell ID, and that an additional welding process secure both the entire flange assembly to the main tubular, and the flange halves to each other.
Good point! The working engineer doesn't need another nagging issue to spend time on.
Yet, these multi-stage cementing tools seem very reliable: Shown here: http://www.halliburton.com/ps/default.aspx?navid=152&pageid=1134&prodgrpid=MSE%3a%3aIQU69XC9E and especially, here: http://www.halliburton.com/ps/Default.aspx?navid=152&pageid=631&prodid=PRN%3a%3aIY8UUW2B7
From a structural-mechanical standpoint, what would you think about solid cement, being placed and filling all prod csg annulars from the bottom of "surface casing" to the mudline wellhead (after the primary cementing of potential production zone(s))? The attached diagram shows a generalized representation (I'm not sure about where the surface casing would be set (Do they use surface casing in offshore wells ?? - No matter - I meant this to apply of course, to whatever the comparable offshore term-of-art is, the point is the same.)
This would make for a nearly impossible salvage of the production casing string upon plugging and abandonment, of course.
Nevertheless, if there is a blowout, the odds might be a little better that the capping issue would involve only the prod casing ID - not having to worry ALSO about multiple annular spaces & kicking-zone possiblities, with the associated seal assemblies without cement barriers.
Moreover, what about sour gas wells? If we're talking seriously about a critical-reliability gas tight system, several hundred feet of cement, plus the metal-mechanical seal assemblies would make a lot more sense than merely the seal assemblies themselves.
And on top of that, what are we designing for - merely the short, meager time frame during perforation, or rather structural-mechanical strength & endurance for perhaps 50 years?
These are good questions, really. What is being examined is conventional wisdom, developed in large part with onshore sweet oil & gas technology. Shouldn't the recommended practices be a little different where the importance, value and danger is greater?
Response To: ron.bronco.fey@live.com Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:11:03 -0600 Subject: RE: Oily Question
I don’t know enough about the Macondo well, but a DV collar is a mechanical device and it can fail, or it can only partially work, or the dart can fail, or...
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I found this image on the net this morning 2/26/11:
This is a note to hopefully generate some intelligent comments - please reply if possible:
The Macondo well had numerous zones of lost circulation, and numerous kicks. Wait a minute.
If you look on the casing diagram, (attached), it is obvious that if any high pressure zones behind pipe, and below 7937', were to "get through" the "liner hanger" seals, that the path leads directly to the production casing annulus (shown in red). As I recall, the production casing annulus was a region that was of concern because the "lock ring" was not set.
Shouldn't a DV tool ( multi-stage cementing tool ) seal off the thousands of feet of free prod-csg annulus communication? ? ? ? And what about cement at the top of the sort-of "mission critical" production casing annulus seal? ? ?
Did we all take this for granted, and not think about cement anywhere except over the productive zone? ? ? What are we thinking? ? ?
This link is to a Halliburton multi-stage collar technology case history:
This began as a sketch for a general aviation full size aircraft, that would suffer a minimum of direct-power-loss and drag penalty resulting from its high velocity prop-wash contacting substantial frontal surface-area airframe components.
The windshield, and the front grill area below the propeller hub of the typical high wing light aircraft were eliminated, and a larger diameter hub was used for the propeller mounting. A clear/translucent hub-cone was envisioned, permitting views from the cockpit, through the large (effectively transparent) blade/cone assembly.
The wings of the prototype were offset from the fuselage, a la, (a) some of the AW&ST Chinese rocket concept vehicles, and (b) the low wing offset of the Citation X and X-31 research aircraft. Also, both the high wing struts, and the main structural wing pylon were canted forward for additional lift.
After the intial designs were drawn, an obvious similarity appeared between the front of the prototypes, and a natural winged-bird-like beak/eye shape.
Hence, following such a theme, a fuselage was modified into a large bird shape, and the wings, elevator and rudder were modified. This then became more of an experimental UAV or model airplane "sketch".
Conventional aircraft theory suggests, center of gravity-wise, that the front to back balance, weighs in favor of a somewhat overall nose heavy weight distribution, so as to create a more predictable and safer stall recovery, and avoid descent-while-in-a-flat-spin dangers, where the nose doesn't drop and the craft stays flatly spinning while it descends, out of control.
Here, elevators would ordinarily be expected to exert some downward force during flight, and accordingly further modifications to the "bird" prototype possibly should include biasing the tail feather elevons into a more level position, for more efficiency in terms of the direction of their force during level flight.
An "artificial" bird rudder was added to one of the "bird" prototypes should additional yaw control be required.
