Successful and Efficient Drill & Drive Conductor Operation in Offshore East Java

Abstracts Conductor setting depth is critical to provide structural support for next drilling sections. The shoe strength must suffice for drilling ahead and avoid any washout and unstable zone. The objective is to design and run conductor smoothly in regards to engineering and operation aspect. Multidisciplinary approach including geotechnical, drilling engineering, and structure, was implemented during planning strategy. The pre-determined conductor setting depth was defined on the maximum mud weight to be used during drilling surface hole section in accordance to the formation strength below the conductor with the purpose of not inducing losses to the formation. Lateral distance between conductor and platform jacket pile was also analyzed to secure the jacket integrity. Anti-collision analysis was performed to prevent collision due to the existence of production well in same platform. Conductor pipe size and specification with some feature was defined to withstand under anticipated load and environment. To determine the way to achieve target depth and the suitability of hammer type, drivability analysis was performed with various anticipated condition. Considering shallow refusal depth, drill and drive was required to reduce shaft friction of soil. Another environmental challenge arise during conductor operation was unable to contain fluid and cutting returns from clean-out process causing return to cover part of the production platform facility. Some of technology were planned to mitigate this challenge. By having comprehensive conductor design, the conductor pipe in all four wells drilled has been successfully installed without any problem on platform jacket integrity and subsequent drilling section. This approach also enabled to efficiency of conductor installation where the number of clean-out and driving run could be reduced. The overflow return challenge could be fully contained by utilizing selfdesigned equipment. The overall operation days of conductor has shown improvement with 1.02 saving days on the last well which equivalent to amount of cost saving around USD 203,500.

Distributed fiber optic monitoring of a CFA pile with a central reinforcement bar bundle

In this paper, we present an application of distributed fiber optic sensor (DFOS) technology to measure the strain of a continuous flight auger (CFA) test pile with a central reinforcement bar bundle, during a static load test carried out in London. Being distributed in nature, DFOS gives much more information about the pile performance as compared to traditional point sensors, such as identifying cross-sectional irregularities or other anomalies. The strain profiles recorded along the depth of the piles from the DFOS were used to calculate pile deformation (contraction), shaft friction, and tip resistance under various loads. Based on this pile load test, a finite element (FE) analysis was performed using a one-dimensional nonlinear load-transfer model. Calibrated by the shaft friction and tip resistance derived from the monitored data, the FE model was able to simulate the pile and soil performance during the load testing with good accuracy. The effect of the reinforcement cage and central reinforcement bar bundle were investigated, and it was found that the addition of a reinforcement cage would reduce the pile settlement by up to 20%.

Friction correction when predicting wood basic density using drilling resistance

Basic density is a fundamental wood property of pulp and sawn wood. An IML Resi PD 400 drilling resistance tool (IML System GmbH, Wiesloch, Germany) was used to evaluate the basic density of Eucalyptus nitens discs and the impact of needle friction on basic density prediction. To determine the accuracy of that prediction with the commonly used linear drill bit shaft friction correction and determine whether this correction is linear, 40 discs were drilled radially, then cut into segments which were measured for basic density. Drilling resistance had a strong relationship with basic density in the outer wood; it was weaker at the pith but this did not compromise prediction accuracy. When using a linear friction correction, the drilling resistance underpredicts basic density by 7.6% in the first 2–3 cm after stem entry, after which the prediction error ranged from 0.6–1.9%. The friction correction was found to be nonlinear, especially at the first few centimeters. To apply this friction correction, basic density values from the model should be added to predict basic density values until 2.9 cm from Resi entry point and after that subtracted to account for the drill bit shaft friction.

Investigation of vibration parameters for needle insertion force reduction

Many medical interventions in therapy and diagnostics require needle insertion into tissue. Common complications such as increased pain and formation of haematoma are caused by wrong needle positioning. It has been shown that pain experience and needle positioning can be improved by a reduction of insertion force, which can be achieved by vibrating the needle axially. An experimental setup has been designed to investigate the influences of different combinations of vibration frequencies (10, 100, and 200 Hz) and vibration amplitudes (20, 100, and 500 μm) during needle insertion into thin sheets of polyethylene terephthalate (PET). A customary 20 W loudspeaker was used to generate the vibration. The results indicate a maximum reduction of 73 % in puncture force and up to a 100 % reduction in shaft friction force. However, the additional vibration force generated by the vibration movement has to be high enough to generate positive effects in terms of force reduction.

Axial capacity of bored piles in very stiff intermediate soils

There is a major shortage of good-quality load test data for bored piles in stiff to hard intermediate soils such as silts and clayey sands. This paper presents the results and interpretation of an instrumented pile test in a very stiff overconsolidated fine-grained deposit. It is shown that, unlike typical fine-grained soils, dilation at the shaft of the pile makes an important contribution to the unit shaft friction. The relationship between shaft friction and the cone penetration test (CPT) end resistance is observed to differ appreciably from established empirical correlations for bored piles in less stiff, fine-grained soils. This is inferred to be largely because of the similarity between the drained and undrained CPT resistances in this soil type as well as the influence of dilation. Existing empirical methods to assess end bearing of bored piles are also seen to provide inconsistent estimations in this soil type.