Carbon Fibers

Tendons

Carbon fiber tendons take TLPs to greater depths.

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Thermoplastics

New-Generation Composite Buoyancy Elements Key For Deep Drilling And Production

    Principal suppliers of riser buoyancy products include major producer Balmoral (Aberdeen, Scotland, U.K. and Houston, Texas, U.S.A.) and CRP Group Ltd. (Skelmersdale, Lancashire, England, U.K.), which also owns Emerson & Cuming (Canton, Mass., U.S.A.). Balmoral customizes epoxy resins, which are used to cr

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Composite Tether Goes To Sea

    Conoco and KOP have manufactured a prototype of a carbon fiber composite tether that could extend TLP production to depths exceeding 10,000 ft/3,000 m. The design has undergone extensive static testing and fatigue loading and has been verified through hydrodynamic model testing. Sea testing is being planned.

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Spoolable Composite Tubular Applications

    Applications for spoolable composite tubulars can be divided into three major areas — onshore, offshore and downhole. Onshore applications, which include production and gathering lines that convey fluids between wells and surface facilities, are well-suited to spoolable composite tubing and RTP. Offshore appli

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Composite Drilling Risers Many Years In The Making

    The development of rigid composite riser systems has a history that spans two decades. Beginning in 1979, Aerospatiale and the Institut Français du Pétrole (IFP) developed a 15,000 psi, 4 inch composite tubular. Although this project started out as a feasibility study, by the mid-1980s it had led to the manufa

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Custom Wet Layup Repair Solutions

    In the second group are customized repairs, employing glass or carbon reinforcement, wet out with vinyl ester, polyester or epoxy resin and applied to the pipe by trained personnel, have been available since the mid-1990s. Selection of reinforcement material, wrap thickness and overlay length is dictated by th

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Catenary Composite Risers

    Catenary risers are able to absorb much more motion than top-tensioned risers, and, thus, are a common solution for wells tied back to an FPSO. Such a vessel experiences very high first-order motion in response to initial contact with wind or waves, making catenary risers a better solution than rigid component

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Composite Trusses For Large Structures?

    Ebert Composites Corp. (Chula Vista, Calif., U.S.A.) is marketing a composite truss concept for large structures that has potential for offshore application. Since 1992, the company has focused on the development of large, all-composite lattice-type power transmission towers to replace galvanized steel towers.

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Interplay Of Materials And Use Conditions Key To Design

    A wide variety of thermoplastic resins is used for the inner fluid/pressure barrier layer, which contains the conveyed material and eliminates any possibility of weeping through the fiber composite. The most common are families of polyolefins (e.g., polyethylenes), polyphenylene sulfides (PPS), nylons (polyami

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Downhole Composites Boost Durability, Drillability

    Halliburton Energy Services, Schlumberger Oilfield Services, Weatherford International, and Baker Oil Tools, all based in Houston, Texas (U.S.A.), offer composite downhole tools — made with both thermoplastics and thermoset resins — for a variety of applications.     Halliburton’s FasDrill packers and plugs

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