Design of a Thermally-Actuated Gas Lift Safety Valve
Gas-lifted oil wells are susceptible to failure through malfunction of gas lift valve assemblies (GLV). One failure mode occurs when the GLV check valve fails and product passes into the well annulus, potentially reaching the wellhead. This is a growing concern as offshore wells are drilled thousand...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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ASME International
2013
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/78576 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2621-7633 |
| _version_ | 1826196359832666112 |
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| author | Gilbertson, Eric W. Hover, Franz S. Arellano, Jose Freeman, Bryan |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Gilbertson, Eric W. Hover, Franz S. Arellano, Jose Freeman, Bryan |
| author_sort | Gilbertson, Eric W. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Gas-lifted oil wells are susceptible to failure through malfunction of gas lift valve assemblies (GLV). One failure mode occurs when the GLV check valve fails and product passes into the well annulus, potentially reaching the wellhead. This is a growing concern as offshore wells are drilled thousands of meters below the ocean floor in extreme temperature and pressure conditions, and repair and monitoring become difficult. Currently no safeguard exists in the GLV to prevent product passage in the event of check valve failure. In this paper a design and operational procedures are proposed for a thermally-actuated positive-locking safety valve to seal the GLV in the event of check valve failure. A thermal model of the well and GLV system is developed and compared to well data to verify feasibility of a thermally-actuated safety valve. A 3× scale prototype safety valve is built and tested under simulated failure scenarios and well start-up scenarios. Realistic well temperatures in the range of 20C to 70C are used. Results demonstrate valve closure in response to simulated check valve failure and valve opening during simulated well start-up. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:25:40Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/78576 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:25:40Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | ASME International |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/785762022-09-30T21:01:55Z Design of a Thermally-Actuated Gas Lift Safety Valve Gilbertson, Eric W. Hover, Franz S. Arellano, Jose Freeman, Bryan Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Gilbertson, Eric W. Hover, Franz S. Gas-lifted oil wells are susceptible to failure through malfunction of gas lift valve assemblies (GLV). One failure mode occurs when the GLV check valve fails and product passes into the well annulus, potentially reaching the wellhead. This is a growing concern as offshore wells are drilled thousands of meters below the ocean floor in extreme temperature and pressure conditions, and repair and monitoring become difficult. Currently no safeguard exists in the GLV to prevent product passage in the event of check valve failure. In this paper a design and operational procedures are proposed for a thermally-actuated positive-locking safety valve to seal the GLV in the event of check valve failure. A thermal model of the well and GLV system is developed and compared to well data to verify feasibility of a thermally-actuated safety valve. A 3× scale prototype safety valve is built and tested under simulated failure scenarios and well start-up scenarios. Realistic well temperatures in the range of 20C to 70C are used. Results demonstrate valve closure in response to simulated check valve failure and valve opening during simulated well start-up. 2013-04-23T18:28:45Z 2013-04-23T18:28:45Z 2011-06 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/ConferencePaper 978-0-7918-4434-2 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/78576 Gilbertson, Eric et al. “Design of a Thermally-Actuated Gas Lift Safety Valve.” Proceedings of the ASME 2011 30th International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering, 2011. 675–684. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2621-7633 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/OMAE2011-49927 Proceedings of the ASME 2011 30th International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ application/pdf ASME International MIT web domain |
| spellingShingle | Gilbertson, Eric W. Hover, Franz S. Arellano, Jose Freeman, Bryan Design of a Thermally-Actuated Gas Lift Safety Valve |
| title | Design of a Thermally-Actuated Gas Lift Safety Valve |
| title_full | Design of a Thermally-Actuated Gas Lift Safety Valve |
| title_fullStr | Design of a Thermally-Actuated Gas Lift Safety Valve |
| title_full_unstemmed | Design of a Thermally-Actuated Gas Lift Safety Valve |
| title_short | Design of a Thermally-Actuated Gas Lift Safety Valve |
| title_sort | design of a thermally actuated gas lift safety valve |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/78576 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2621-7633 |
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