Pipe handling equipment - Part 1
Sunday, 26. August 2007, 12:17:07
Have you ever seen a rig? An oil rig? No matter offshore or onshore. Have you ever seen what a huge pipes are going inside the earth? Have you ever thought what a great weight they have? And more interesting ... How are they handled? Who could ever fasten or break-out these pipes and tools? How?
Here, I wish to introduce you to Pipe Handling Equipment.
Pipe handling equipment (which I here after name as PHE - just in this post), are functionally like those tools such as tongs you have got at your home, to tighten or loosen screws, but with a bigger size, and heavier weight.
Let's begin with HOISTING EQUIPMENT. In tihs category, we have got LINKS, ELEVATORS and ELEVATOR/SPIDERS (E/S). Links are used to hang an elevator to the to of the rig. Then you can hoist pipes on the rig floor, and put or run them into the well.
Such elevator links (also known as BAILS) could handle more than 1000 tons, according to their size and manufacturing. Different sizes are for different elevators or E/S. You choose your bail according to the maximum weight you are going to handle on the rig floor, which is also a parameter of depth, rig power and location - offshore or onshore.
An elevator is tool, which grasp around the pipe and hanged on the bails (two bails are holding an elevator). Then the bails are pulled up, for instance with the Top Drive, and therefore, pipes are pulled out from the well, and vice-versa, they are run into the hole.
Different elevators are designed to meet requirements of a rig. Single joint elevators are used to handle single joints. So they could handle maximum 6 tons. SIDE DOOR or CENTER LATCH elevators are designed to handle pipes and tubulars of heavier weight. They could handle up to 1000 tons.
New elevators are desinged with bushings, which allow you to have a single body, but in order to handle different pipe sizes, you need only to change the bushing. This way you could save a lot of rig-time, and money.
Elevator/Spider is an integration of elevator and slip. Slip, which I would dicuss later, are used to grip the pipes on the floor, not allowing them slide down to the hole.
Here, I wish to introduce you to Pipe Handling Equipment.
Pipe handling equipment (which I here after name as PHE - just in this post), are functionally like those tools such as tongs you have got at your home, to tighten or loosen screws, but with a bigger size, and heavier weight.
Let's begin with HOISTING EQUIPMENT. In tihs category, we have got LINKS, ELEVATORS and ELEVATOR/SPIDERS (E/S). Links are used to hang an elevator to the to of the rig. Then you can hoist pipes on the rig floor, and put or run them into the well.
Such elevator links (also known as BAILS) could handle more than 1000 tons, according to their size and manufacturing. Different sizes are for different elevators or E/S. You choose your bail according to the maximum weight you are going to handle on the rig floor, which is also a parameter of depth, rig power and location - offshore or onshore.
An elevator is tool, which grasp around the pipe and hanged on the bails (two bails are holding an elevator). Then the bails are pulled up, for instance with the Top Drive, and therefore, pipes are pulled out from the well, and vice-versa, they are run into the hole.
Different elevators are designed to meet requirements of a rig. Single joint elevators are used to handle single joints. So they could handle maximum 6 tons. SIDE DOOR or CENTER LATCH elevators are designed to handle pipes and tubulars of heavier weight. They could handle up to 1000 tons.
New elevators are desinged with bushings, which allow you to have a single body, but in order to handle different pipe sizes, you need only to change the bushing. This way you could save a lot of rig-time, and money.
Elevator/Spider is an integration of elevator and slip. Slip, which I would dicuss later, are used to grip the pipes on the floor, not allowing them slide down to the hole.
WIDGETIZE