PUMP ASSEMBLY AND METHOD FOR ASSESSING VALVE CONDITIONS IN PUMP
A method of monitoring and assessing valve conditions in a pump includes collecting data regarding timing of a pump piston and vibration of a pump fluid end, processing the data to form a filtered and transformed vibration signal, banding the vibration signal into high energy bands and low energy bands, and comparing a ratio of at least one high energy band to at least one low energy band of the vibration signal with at least one constant to determine valve condition.
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In the drilling and completion industry, the formation of boreholes for the purpose of production or injection of fluid is common. The boreholes are used for exploration or extraction of natural resources such as hydrocarbons, oil, gas, water, and alternatively for CO2 sequestration. Drilling fluids can be pumped downhole to assist in the formation of boreholes. Also, to increase the production from a borehole, the production zone can be fractured to allow the formation fluids to flow more freely from the formation to the borehole. The drilling operation and the fracturing operation sometimes include pumping fluids at high pressure downhole and towards the formation.
To pump fluids at the high pressures required for downhole operations, crankshaft driven positive displacement pumps are used, which include an engine, cooling system, transmission, power end and fluid end. The power end includes or is attached to a pump powering mechanism also known as a prime mover, commonly a diesel combustion engine or alternatively an electric motor, which connects to a pinion shaft to drive the power end. The transmission connects the engine and power end and provides speed control and dampening. The fluid end is connected to the power end. The fluid end includes a number of plungers driven by a crankshaft toward and away from a chamber in order to affect a high or low pressure on the chamber. The fluid end receives relatively low pressure fluid, and pressurizes the fluid to provide higher pressurized fracturing fluid at the required pressure for fracturing within the borehole. The valve and valve seats are some of the most commonly replaced items in the fluid end.
Typically in the well service industry, the valves and seats are replaced on a regular basis without knowledge of their condition at the time of removal. Generally, the valves are removed twice as frequently as compared to the seats. This is because the fluid end can be damaged if valves and seats are not removed before excessive wear occurs. Excessive wear leads to valve damage and valve damage leads to fluid end washout. Fluid end washout is one of the major causes of fluid end failure. Fluid ends are a lot more expensive to replace as compared to valve and seat assemblies. It is therefore desirable that valves and seats be removed before wear can result in damage sufficient to impact the fluid end. However, it is not always possible to ensure that replacement occurs in time yet such precautionary approach may still lead to premature removal of valves and seats.
The art would be receptive to improved apparatus and methods for valve and seat condition detection for well servicing pumps.
BRIEF DESCRIPTIONA method of monitoring and assessing valve conditions in a pump includes collecting data regarding timing of a pump piston and vibration of a pump fluid end, processing the data to form a filtered and transformed vibration signal, banding the vibration signal into high energy bands and low energy bands, and comparing a ratio of at least one high energy band to at least one low energy band of the vibration signal with at least one constant to determine valve condition.
A pump assembly includes a pump including a power end, a fluid end, a piston, and a plurality of valves, a timing sensor configured in the power end to sense movement of the piston, an accelerometer in the fluid end to sense vibrations within the fluid end, and a system configured to collect data from the timing sensor and accelerometer, process the data to provide a filtered and transformed vibration signal, and compare a ratio of high energy bands and low energy bands of the vibration signal to at least one constant to assess valve condition.
A method of monitoring and assessing valve conditions in the pump assembly described above includes collecting data regarding timing of the piston and vibrations in the fluid end, processing the data by the system to form a filtered and transformed vibration signal, banding the vibration signal by the system into the high energy bands and the low energy bands, and comparing a ratio of at least one high energy band to at least one low energy band of the vibration signal with the at least one constant to determine valve condition.
The following descriptions should not be considered limiting in any way. With reference to the accompanying drawings, like elements are numbered alike:
A detailed description of one or more embodiments of the disclosed apparatus and method are presented herein by way of exemplification and not limitation with reference to the Figures.
Turning now to
The suction and discharge valves 58, 60 are pressure-operated valves. Valve opening and closing depend upon the weight of the valves 58, 60, spring force of the springs 64, 70, valve geometry of the valves 58, 60 and pressure difference on the two opposing sides of each valve 58, 60. Valve weight, spring force and suction pressure inside the chamber 52 closes the discharge valve 60 and opens the suction valve 58. Valve weight, spring force and discharge pressure within the chamber 52 closes the suction valve 58 and opens the discharge valve 60. Each valve 58, 60 opens and closes once every revolution of the piston 34.
Under normal circumstances, valves 58, 60 and their seats 62, 68 are removed well ahead of utilization of their useful life. A premature removal of valves 58, 60 and seats 62, 68 leads to suboptimal expenses in repair and maintenance cost.
However, it is difficult to devise a common valve and seat change schedule for a large fleet because their life consumption depends upon many factors. Some of these factors include suction pressure, discharge pressure, speed, type of fluid pumped, fluid end maintenance, quantity, quality and dimensional integrity of the valves 58, 60 and their respective seats 62, 68. Valve and seat material properties and surface hardness also play a role.
The system and method described herein allow a pump operator to assess the valve and seat conditions without opening the fluid end 16. The knowledge of valve damage level can mitigate fluid end washout while preventing premature removal of valves 58, 60 and seats 62, 68. A valve and seat operation in good condition is assessed and recorded for its particular timing and vibration signature. Time duration taken for opening and closing a valve 58, 60 and vibration signature of fluid end 16 are different in good condition as compared to worn or damaged conditions, thus providing a comparison.
Data collection involves using two or more types of sensors 54, 56 to collect data and monitor valve condition. As shown in
A system 150 is provided within the pump assembly 100 to collect data at a high sampling rate, such as, but not limited to, more than 10,000 samples per second and up to 60,000 samples per second, including the data collection shown in boxes 112, 114, 116. The system 150 includes a controller 152 containing software for performing the method 110, a memory, and data acquisition, cables or wireless communication apparatus (not shown), and the sensors 54, 56. The system 150 may also include a display 154, such as a monitor, to provide indications of the conditions of the valves 58, 60 and valve seats 62, 68 to an operator. Optionally, if the system 150 determines that the valves 58, 60 and/or valve seats 62, 68 are in a dangerously worn out condition, the system 150 may further provide a signal to the prime mover 12 to halt operation of the pump 10 to prevent damage to the fluid end 16. Otherwise, utilization of the system 150 does not interfere with operation of the pump 10.
With the data acquired from the sensors 54, 56, or derived therefrom, the controller 152 of the system 150 conducts a noise filtering technique, which is a digital signal processing method such as spectral averaging as indicated by box 120 in
Another method for noise filtering that can be used to increase the ability to detect pump synchronous related energy is time synchronous averaging. Time synchronous averaging can replace or assist spectral averaging as indicated by box 120 in
A low pass filter may be employed in the method 110 to narrow the range of the specific frequency of the signal that the system 150 analyzes, as demonstrated by box 122. As should be understood, a low pass filter passes signals with a frequency lower than a certain cut-off frequency, and attenuates signals with a frequency higher than the cut-off frequency, such that the low pass filter will set in a particular frequency range in an area of actual interest. The use of a low pass filter 122 also decreases the amount of processing required in the remainder of the method. In some embodiments, the low pass filter 122 may be eliminated since the transformation (box 124) is breaking energy down into individual bands. However, employing a low pass filter enables computation of the total energy over a specially selected band, e.g. 0-10 Hz. Thus, a low pass filter 122 may be used in addition to transformation 124 or as an alternative to the transformation 124. With regards to the transformation 124, Fast Fourier Transformation (“FFT”) is employed to segment the measured vibration signals into components of different frequencies.
FFT of vibration signals in frequency domain from valves in as-new condition 160, medium worn out condition 162, heavily worn out 164, and destroyed conditions 166 are shown in
The signal 170 (as shown by example in
For a normal operation (valves in good condition), on average the signal magnitude inside HFRSB band 174 is expected to be higher as compared to signal magnitude inside a NHFRSB band 176. The ratio of average magnitude inside HFRSB and NHFRSB bands 174, 176 is used to predict valve condition, as noted by box 128 in
Thus, a valve condition monitoring and assessment algorithm 110 has been described, as well as a pump assembly 100 incorporating a system 150 for employing the valve condition monitoring and assessment algorithm 110. Although more sensors can be employed, the system can advantageously utilize as few as two sensors 54, 56 to monitor and predict valve conditions in fluid ends 16. Pump speed, vibration (Gs) and the frequency domain signature is calculated from the collected data to predict valve condition. The data is filtered (frequency and noise) and transformed. Multiple filtering techniques (in time and frequency domain) may be used to filter the signals. Transformations are used to prepare the signal for harmonic frequency response spectral bands 174, 176. Because only specific signal bands are looked at, excessive computing processing time is not required. These bands are used to predict valve condition.
While the invention has been described with reference to an exemplary embodiment or embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes may be made and equivalents may be substituted for elements thereof without departing from the scope of the invention. In addition, many modifications may be made to adapt a particular situation or material to the teachings of the invention without departing from the essential scope thereof. Therefore, it is intended that the invention not be limited to the particular embodiment disclosed as the best mode contemplated for carrying out this invention, but that the invention will include all embodiments falling within the scope of the claims. Also, in the drawings and the description, there have been disclosed exemplary embodiments of the invention and, although specific terms may have been employed, they are unless otherwise stated used in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation, the scope of the invention therefore not being so limited. Moreover, the use of the terms first, second, etc. do not denote any order or importance, but rather the terms first, second, etc. are used to distinguish one element from another. Furthermore, the use of the terms a, an, etc. do not denote a limitation of quantity, but rather denote the presence of at least one of the referenced item.
Claims
1. A method of monitoring and assessing valve conditions in a pump, the method comprising:
- collecting data regarding timing of a pump piston and vibration of a pump fluid end;
- processing the data to form a filtered and transformed vibration signal;
- banding the vibration signal into high energy bands and low energy bands; and
- comparing a ratio of at least one high energy band to at least one low energy band of the vibration signal with at least one constant to determine valve condition.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein, if the ratio of the at least one high energy band to the at least one low energy band of the vibration signal is greater than a first constant amongst the at least one constant, determining the valve to be in good condition.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein, if the ratio of the at least one high energy band to the at least one low energy band of the vibration signal is less than the first constant, but greater than a second constant amongst the at least one constant, determining the valve to be worn out.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein, if the ratio of the at least one high energy band to the at least one low energy band of the vibration signal is less than the second constant, determining the valve to be destroyed.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein banding the vibration signal into high energy bands and low energy bands includes banding the vibration signal into harmonic frequency response spectral bands and non-harmonic frequency response spectral bands.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein processing the data includes noise filtering.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein noise filtering includes time synchronous averaging.
8. The method of claim 6, wherein noise filtering includes spectral averaging.
9. The method of claim 6, wherein processing the data further includes passing the signal through a low pass filter.
10. The method of claim 6, wherein processing the data further includes fast Fourier transformation.
11. The method of claim 10, wherein the transformation prepares the signal for banding.
12. The method of claim 1, further comprising configuring a sensor to provide a timing signal of the pump piston.
13. The method of claim 1, further comprising arranging a sensor to detect vibration within the fluid end of the pump.
14. The method of claim 13, wherein arranging a sensor includes utilizing an accelerometer.
15. The method of claim 1, wherein data is collected at more than 10,000 samples per second.
16. A pump assembly comprising:
- a pump including a power end, a fluid end, a piston, and a plurality of valves;
- a timing sensor configured in the power end to sense movement of the piston;
- an accelerometer in the fluid end to sense vibrations within the fluid end; and,
- a system configured to collect data from the timing sensor and accelerometer, process the data to provide a filtered and transformed vibration signal, and compare a ratio of high energy bands and low energy bands of the vibration signal to at least one constant to assess valve condition.
17. The pump assembly of claim 16, wherein the system includes a user operable display arranged to indicate the valve condition.
18. The pump assembly of claim 16, further comprising a prime mover operatively connected to the power end to move the piston, wherein the system sends a signal to the prime mover to halt operation if at least one of the valves requires immediate replacement as determined by the assessed valve condition.
19. The pump assembly of claim 16, wherein the pump is a positive displacement reciprocating pump.
20. The pump assembly of claim 16, wherein the valves of the pump include at least one inlet valve and at least one outlet valve.
21. A method of monitoring and assessing valve conditions in the pump assembly of claim 16, the method comprising:
- collecting data regarding timing of the piston and vibrations in the fluid end;
- processing the data by the system to form a filtered and transformed vibration signal;
- banding the vibration signal by the system into the high energy bands and the low energy bands; and
- comparing a ratio of at least one high energy band to at least one low energy band of the vibration signal with the at least one constant to determine valve condition.
Type: Application
Filed: Jan 19, 2015
Publication Date: Jul 21, 2016
Applicant: BAKER HUGHES INCORPORATED (Houston, TX)
Inventors: Gulshan Singh (The Woodlands, TX), Thomas Jaeger (The Woodlands, TX), Erik N. Lee (Houston, TX)
Application Number: 14/599,622