How Industry Collaboration Can Manage an Effective Source Control Emergency Response

Responding to a Source Control event requires a significant amount of resources, both in terms of engineering complexity and skilled personnel. The pool of available hardware is ever increasing, not only in quantity but in operational complexity. Service providers store and maintain a range of equipment, including capping stacks, subsea dispersant application tooling, technology to allow landing of capping stacks in shallow water and flowback systems. To mount a response, it is highly likely that these assets would be mobilised from various global locations. It would also require the support from many organisations with expertise in various fields. Industry has invested significantly in workshops and exercises to test and continuously improve the service provisions in place. This paper aims to: Re-visit industry led source control exercises completed to date and identify the impact they have had on preparednessDiscuss key developments industry is taking to tackle complex planning activity, including regional expertise forumsWork through the core subjects that require industry collaboration to develop a successful Source Control Emergency Response Plan (SCERP - detailed below) Industry led exercises & workshops have identified several key items that require detailed analysis to develop a successful SCERP: Response Time Modelling – understanding and planning complex supply chain requirementsResource mapping – identifying global experts who can provide engineering, modelling and operational supportMutual aid – in the event of a mobilisation, how can industry work together to ensure the most experienced people can work collaborativelyEquipment fabrication – whilst there is a range of hardware available, certain scenarios will require the fabrication of specific equipment. How can this be managed and pre-planned?Exercising and testing – how can the above subjects be effectively tested, with industry maximising experience and ensuring continuous development of lessons learned This paper will explore the steps industry has taken to methodically work through these challenges to ensure that preparedness remains a high priority. The range of industry developed guidelines that have also been developed to act as a handrail for planning purposes will be discussed. Whilst planning and executing Source Control exercises can take a significant amount of time and investment, the lessons learned, and experience gained is invaluable not only directly to industry, but wider support organisations (i.e. logistics providers). It is paramount that these lessons are built on and the experience gained is maintained for the future.

Development and Application of Rapid Injection Molds Using Aluminum-Filled Epoxy Resins for Metal Injection Molding

Metal injection molding (MIM) is a near net-shape manufacturing process combing conventional plastic injection molding and powder metallurgy. Two kinds of injections molds for MIM were developed using conventional mold steel and aluminum (Al)-filled epoxy resins in this study. The characteristics of the mold made by rapid tooling technology (RTT) were evaluated and compared to that fabricated conventional machining method through MIM process. It was found that the service life of the injection mold fabricated by Al-filled epoxy resins is about 1300 molding cycles. The saving in manufacturing cost of an injection mold made by Al-filled epoxy resins is about 30.4% compared to that fabricated conventional mold steel. The saving in manufacturing time of an injection mold made by RT technology is about 30.3% compared to that fabricated conventional machining method.

Prototyping and Production of Polymeric Microfluidic Chip

Microfluidic chips have found many advanced applications in the areas of life science, analytical chemistry, agro-food analysis, and environmental detection. This chapter focuses on investigating the commonly used manufacturing technologies and process chain for the prototyping and mass production of microfluidic chips. The rapid prototyping technologies comprising of PDMS casting, micro machining, and 3D-printing are firstly detailed with some important research findings. Scaling up the production process chain for microfluidic chips are discussed and summarized with the perspectives of tooling technology, replication, and bonding technologies, where the primary working mechanism, technical advantages and limitations of each process method are presented. Finally, conclusions and future perspectives are given. Overall, this chapter demonstrates how to select the processing materials and methods to meet practical requirements for microfluidic chip batch production. It can provide significant guidance for end-user of microfluidic chip applications.

Rapid Development of an Injection Mold with High Cooling Performance Using Molding Simulation and Rapid Tooling Technology

Rapid tooling technology (RTT) provides an alternative approach to quickly provide wax injection molds for the required products since it can reduce the time to market compared with conventional machining approaches. Removing conformal cooling channels (CCCs) is the key technology for manufacturing injection mold fabricated by rapid tooling technology. In this study, three different kinds of materials were used to fabricate CCCs embedded in the injection mold. This work explores a technology for rapid development of injection mold with high cooling performance. It was found that wax is the most suitable material for making CCCs. An innovative method for fabricating a large intermediary mold with both high load and supporting capacities for manufacturing a large rapid tooling using polyurethane foam was demonstrated. A trend equation for predicting the usage amount of polyurethane foam was proposed. The production cost savings of about 50% can be obtained. An optimum conformal cooling channel design obtained by simulation is proposed. Three injection molds with different cooling channels for injection molding were fabricated by RTT. Reductions in the cooling time by about 89% was obtained. The variation of the results between the experiment and the simulation was investigated and analyzed.

Mathematical Modeling and Fuzzy Analysis of Hot Runner in Comparison to Cold Runner in Injection Moulding

In a mass production environment of supply chains where volume of production runs into millions of parts per month where even the slight improvement in the manufacturing process through cycle time reduction or better material utilization has the potential to produce huge savings and productivity to match customer tact time, the paper serves a useful insight into appropriate tooling technology for moulding processes. Though there have been several studies on hot runner technology in injection molding processes vis a vis conventional cold runner technology, ultimate manufacturer still has to conduct trials and calculate ROIs, initial investment, quality and maintainability aspect to conclude if the manufacturer can go for hot runner or not. The paper lends a scientific expression to this decision making problem and offers a mathematical model with variables like Gross weight to Net Weight ratio, machine tonnage, volume involved. The user only has to put in the values to get an index value with a threshold number to decide if hot runner is viable for the component in hand or not.

Computer simulation of thermoforming process and its verification using a rapid tooling mould

The results of computer simulation of thermoforming process made using ANSYS Polyflow software are presented in this paper. The analysis of the wall thickness distribution across an U-shaped thermoformed product manufactured using a positive mould was made. The simulation results were verified using a mould manufactured in a 3D printing process which was Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) and a poly(ethylene terephthalate) formed sheet. It was proven that the computer simulation and a tool made with a Rapid Tooling technology can be useful for predicting the quality of a thermoformed part, particularly to find the problems with thin-walled areas.