mud pump piston swab free sample

Tired of changing mud pump pistons? We have your solution. The TD will work in all types of drilling mud including oil based, synthetic and water based. It was specifically designed to work in applications where water based mud is used or in situations where WBM is used on the top side & OBM is used on the bottom end. This eliminates the need for changing the piston midway through the drilling program. The “TD” or “Total Depth” name reflects our commitment to make a single piston that will last from “spud” to “TD”. This piston has been engineered with a unique friction reducing material bonded into the urethane of the sealing lip. Because the TD is built to withstand friction in the liner, wear on your parts is minimized and savings is maximized. The Patriot™ TD is also designed to meet pressures of 7500 psi as well as temperatures up to 220 degrees.

As usual, winter — or the slow season — is the time most drillers take the time to maintain their equipment in order to get ready for the peak season. One of the main parts that usually needs attention is the mud pump. Sometimes, it is just a set of swabs to bring it up to snuff, but often, tearing it down and inspecting the parts may reveal that other things need attention. For instance, liners. I can usually run three sets of swabs before it is time to change the liner. New liners and swabs last a good long time. The second set of swabs lasts less, and by the time you put in your third set of swabs, it’s time to order new liners. Probably rods too. It’s not always necessary to change pistons when you change swabs. Sometimes just the rubber needs to be changed, saving money. How do you tell? There is a small groove around the outside of the piston. As it wears, the groove will disappear and it’s time for a new piston.

The wear groove on a piston can be a good indicator of the general health of your pump. If the wear is pretty even all around, chances are the pump is in pretty good shape. But if you see wear on one side only, that is a clue to dig deeper. Uneven wear is a sign that the rods are not stroking at the exact angle that they were designed to, which is parallel to the liner. So, it’s time to look at the gear end. Or as some folks call it, “the expensive end.”

The wear groove on a piston can be a good indicator of the general health of your pump. If the wear is pretty even all around, chances are the pump is in pretty good shape. But if you see wear on one side only, that is a clue to dig deeper.

After you get the cover off the gear end, the first thing to look at will be the oil. It needs to be fairly clean, with no drill mud in it. Also look for metal. Some brass is to be expected, but if you put a magnet in the oil and come back later and it has more than a little metal on it, it gets more serious. The brass in the big end of the connecting rod is a wearable part. It is made to be replaced at intervals — usually years. The most common source of metal is from the bull and pinion gears. They transmit the power to the mud. If you look at the pinion gear closely, you will find that it wears faster than the bull gear. This is for two reasons. First, it is at the top of the pump and may not receive adequate lubrication. The second reason is wear. All the teeth on both the bull and pinion gears receive the same amount of wear, but the bull gear has many more teeth to spread the wear. That is why, with a well maintained pump, the bull gear will outlast the pinion gear three, four or even five times. Pinion gears aren’t too expensive and are fairly easy to change.

This process is fairly straightforward machine work, but over the years, I have discovered a trick that will bring a rebuild up to “better than new.” When you tear a pump down, did you ever notice that there is about 1-inch of liner on each end that has no wear? This is because the swab never gets to it. If it has wear closer to one end than the other, your rods are out of adjustment. The trick is to offset grind the journals. I usually offset mine about ¼-inch. This gives me a ½-inch increase in the stroke without weakening the gear end. This turns a 5x6 pump into a 5½x6 pump. More fluid equals better holes. I adjust the rods to the right length to keep from running out the end of the liner, and enjoy the benefits.

Other than age, the problem I have seen with journal wear is improper lubrication. Smaller pumps rely on splash lubrication. This means that as the crank strokes, the rods pick up oil and it lubricates the crank journals. If your gear end is full of drill mud due to bad packing, it’s going to eat your pump. If the oil is clean, but still shows crank wear, you need to look at the oil you are using.

Oil that is too thick will not be very well picked up and won’t find its way into the oil holes in the brass to lubricate the journals. I’ve seen drillers that, when their pump starts knocking, they switch to a heavier weight oil. This actually makes the problem worse. In my experience, factory specified gear end oil is designed for warmer climates. As you move north, it needs to be lighter to do its job. Several drillers I know in the Northern Tier and Canada run 30 weight in their pumps. In Georgia, I run 40W90. Seems to work well.

FET manufactures a full range of valves and seats for every drilling and well-servicing application as part of our full line of Osprey® mud pump system solutions. All of our valves and seats can be used in water, water base, oil base and synthetic base mud applications. FET offers additional valves and seats not listed below, including drilling valves, frac valves and well service valves. FET’s QC standards for the dimensional and material specs are extremely rigid in comparison to other manufacturers. Contact your FET representative to learn more.

The 2,200-hp mud pump for offshore applications is a single-acting reciprocating triplex mud pump designed for high fluid flow rates, even at low operating speeds, and with a long stroke design. These features reduce the number of load reversals in critical components and increase the life of fluid end parts.

The pump’s critical components are strategically placed to make maintenance and inspection far easier and safer. The two-piece, quick-release piston rod lets you remove the piston without disturbing the liner, minimizing downtime when you’re replacing fluid parts.

My first days as an MWD field tech I heard horror stories surrounding what is commonly referred to as “pump noise”. I quickly identified the importance of learning to properly identify this “noise”. From the way it was explained to me, this skill might prevent the company you work from losing a job with an exploration company, satisfy your supervisor or even allow you to become regarded as hero within your organization if you’ve proven yourself handy at this skill.

“Pump noise” is a reference to an instability in surface pressure created by the mud pumps on a modern drilling rig, often conflated with any pressure fluctuation at a similar frequency to pulses generated by a mud pulser, but caused by a source external to the mud pulser. This change in pressure is what stands in the way of the decoder properly understanding what the MWD tool is trying to communicate. For the better part of the first year of learning my role I wrongly assumed that all “noise” would be something audible to the human ear, but this is rarely the case.

A mud pulser is a valve that briefly inhibits flow of drilling fluid traveling through the drill string, creating a sharp rise and fall of pressure seen on surface, also known as a “pulse”.

Depending on if the drilling fluid is being circulated in closed or open loop, it will be drawn from a tank or a plastic lined reservoir by a series(or one) mud pumps and channeled into the stand pipe, which runs up the derrick to the Kelly-hose, through the saver sub and down the drill-pipe(drill-string). Through the filter screen past an agitator or exciter, around the MWD tool, through a mud motor and out of the nozzles in the bit. At this point the fluid begins it’s journey back to the drilling rig through the annulus, past the BOP then out of the flow line and either over the shale shakers and/or back in the fluid reservoir.

Developing a firm grasp on these fundamentals were instrumental in my success as a field technician and an effective troubleshooter. As you can tell, there are a lot of components involved in this conduit which a mud pulser telemeters through. The way in which many of these components interact with the drilling fluid can suddenly change in ways that slightly create sharp changes in pressure, often referred to as “noise”. This “noise” creates difficulty for the decoder by suddenly reducing or increasing pressure in a manner that the decoder interprets a pulse. To isolate these issues, you must first acknowledge potential of their existence. I will give few examples of some of these instances below:

Suction screens on intake hoses will occasionally be too large, fail or become unfastened thus allowing large debris in the mud system. Depending on the size of debris and a little bit of luck it can end up in an area that will inhibit flow, circumstantially resulting in a sudden fluctuation of pressure.

This specifically is a term used to refer to the mud motor stator rubber deterioration, tearing into small pieces and passing through the nozzles of the bit. Brief spikes in pressure as chunks of rubber pass through one or more nozzles of the bit can often be wrongly interpreted as pulses.

Sometimes when mud is displaced or a pump suction isn’t completely submerged, tiny air bubbles are introduced into the drilling fluid. Being that air compresses and fluid does not, pulses can be significantly diminished and sometimes non-existent.

As many of you know the downhole mud motor is what enables most drilling rigs to steer a well to a targeted location. The motor generates bit RPM by converting fluid velocity to rotor/bit RPM, otherwise known as hydraulic horsepower. Anything downhole that interacts with the bit will inevitably affect surface pressure. One of the most common is bit weight. As bit weight is increased, so does surface pressure. It’s important to note that consistent weight tends to be helpful to the decoder by increasing the amplitude of pulses, but inconsistent bit weight, depending on frequency of change, can negatively affect decoding. Bit bounce, bit bite and inconsistent weight transfer can all cause pressure oscillation resulting in poor decoding. Improper bit speed or bit type relative to a given formation are other examples of possible culprits as well.

Over time mud pump components wear to the point failure. Pump pistons(swabs), liners, valves and valve seats are all necessary components for generating stable pressure. These are the moving parts on the fluid side of the pump and the most frequent point of failure. Another possible culprit but less common is an inadequately charged pulsation dampener. Deteriorating rubber hoses anywhere in the fluid path, from the mud pump to the saver sub, such as a kelly-hose, can cause an occasional pressure oscillation.

If I could change one thing about today’s directional drilling industry, it would be eliminating the term “pump noise”. The misleading term alone has caused confusion for countless people working on a drilling rig. On the other hand, I’m happy to have learned these lessons the hard way because they seem engrained into my memory. As technology improves, so does the opportunities for MWD technology companies to provide useful solutions. Solutions to aid MWD service providers to properly isolate or overcome the challenges that lead to decoding issues. As an industry we have come a lot further from when I had started, but there is much left to be desired. I’m happy I can use my experiences by contributing to an organization capable of acknowledging and overcoming these obstacles through the development of new technology.

The positive displacement mud pump is a key component of the drilling process and its lifespan and reliability are critical to a successful operation.

The fluid end is the most easily damaged part of the mud pump. The pumping process occurs within the fluid end with valves, pistons, and liners. Because these components are high-wear items, many pumps are designed to allow quick replacement of these parts.

Due to the nature of its operation, pistons, liners, and valve assemblies will wear and are considered expendable components. There will be some corrosion and metallurgy imperfections, but the majority of pump failures can be traced back to poor maintenance, errors during the repair process, and pumping drilling fluid with excessive solids content.

A few signs include cut piston rubber, discoloration, pistons that are hard to remove, scored liners, valve and seat pitting or cracks, valve inserts severely worn, cracked, or completely missing, and even drilling fluids making their way to the power end of the pump.

The fluid end of a positive displacement triplex pump presents many opportunities for issues. The results of these issues in such a high-pressure system can mean expensive downtime on the pump itself and, possibly, the entire rig — not to mention the costly repair or replacement of the pump. To reduce severe vibration caused by the pumping process, many pumps incorporate both a suction and discharge pulsation dampener; these are connected to the suction and discharge manifolds of the fluid end. These dampeners reduce the cavitation effect on the entire pump which increases the life of everything within the pump.

The fluid end is the most easily damaged part of the mud pump. The pumping process occurs within the fluid end with valves, pistons, and liners. Because these components are high-wear items, many pumps are designed to allow quick replacement of these parts.

Additionally, the throat (inside diameter) can begin to wash out from extended usage hours or rather quickly when the fluid solids content is excessive. When this happens it can cut all the way through the seat and into the fluid end module/seat deck. This causes excessive expense not only from a parts standpoint but also extended downtime for parts delivery and labor hours to remove and replace the fluid module. With that said, a properly operated and maintained mud recycling system is vital to not only the pump but everything the drilling fluid comes in contact with downstream.

The RRP PINNACLE ASSEMBLED PISTON also known as Replaceable Rubber Piston or Supreme Piston is designed for use in the most demanding applications. The replaceable seal element is manufactured from a specially formulated elastomeric compound designed to be resistant to most chemical fluid found in the drilling industry today. These pistons can also be used in conditions where elevated temperatures can be problematic to other types of pistons in the market. The fabric anti-extrusion device on the piston is constructed from proprietary materials utilizing well researched process to reduce the extrusion of the rubber even at the pump’s maximum pressure rating.