Today’s update is by Erik Noguez:
Today we visited with two company representatives from Timken, a company that specializes in making bearings for a wide range of industries including oil and gas. The representatives explained the products they offer. A common bearing used in the oil and gas industry are those used in a rotary table on rotary drilling rigs. We have made an appointment to visit their factory here in Ploiesti next week to see first-hand how they design and make bearings.
After meeting with Timken, we visited the local clock museum in the city center of Ploiesti. The museum was established in 1963 by Nicolae Simanche, a local from Ploesti. At the museum, we found plenty of wall clocks, pocket watches, and grandfather style clocks from countries such as England, Germany, Switzerland, and Romania.
To wrap up the day, we continued class by learning in detail about external/internal pressures on tubulars. By quantitatively and qualitatively inspecting tubulars, an engineer can optimize their designs on casing, production tubing, and drill pipe. For example, through NDT (non-destructive testing) inspection of drill pipe, a company can save a few days of rig time by switching to pipe that is less fatigued. In horizontal wells drilled today, drill pipe is more likely to fail by fatigue due to either planned or unplanned occurrences like dog-leg severity. Proper inspection of drill pipe may not seem like a heavily discussed topic, however, if not conducted correctly, drill pipe failure can lead to severe consequences like a well blow-out.