Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Drilling Made Easier
While I was looking around for information about my last post on the RipTide Reamer, I stumbled across another amazing advancement in technology by Weatherford. The previous RipTide Reamer was mechanically activated as seen in the video on the last post. A ball pressured with hydrostatic pressure sheared sets of pins and forced the cutter blocks out for reaming and a termination of circulation through the wellbore allowed them to contract back into the tool's body. RFDI reamers can be opened and closed by radio frequencies carried in a small pill. The pill is pumped downhole with the mud and when passed through the tool, signals activate the tool. Different pills are sent down to open or close, but the tool can be activated and closed several times in a single run. This saves a substantial amount of rig time and money. The video found on this page shows the amazingly small radio frequency identification pills in action.
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The reamer appears to be very effective. I wonder what happens to the RFID pill after it passes and activates or deactivates the reamer? Does it bottle up somewhere before the drill bit, or does it possibly plug the bit, or simply just get crushed up by the bit and circulated?
ReplyDeleteI'm not exactly sure what happens with the RFID pill, but I would guess the trouble of separating the pill from the mud through the shakers and other surface cleaning equipment for the mud would be much too time consuming. I would think the pill simply gets crushed by the bit or lost somewhere in the circulation process.
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