This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the presently described embodiments. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present embodiments. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
In order to meet consumer and industrial demand for natural resources, companies often invest significant amounts of time and money in finding and extracting oil, natural gas, and other subterranean resources from the earth. Particularly, once a desired subterranean resource such as oil or natural gas is discovered, drilling and production systems are often employed to access and extract the resource. These systems may be located onshore or offshore depending on the location of a desired resource. Further, such systems generally include a wellhead assembly mounted on a well through which the resource is accessed or extracted. These wellhead assemblies may include a wide variety of components, such as various casings, valves, hangers, pumps, fluid conduits, and the like, that facilitate drilling or production operations.
As will be appreciated, various tubular strings can be run into wells through wellhead assemblies. For instance, wells are often lined with casing that generally serves to stabilize the well and to isolate fluids within the wellbore from certain formations penetrated by the well (e.g., to prevent contamination of freshwater reservoirs). Such casing is frequently cemented into place within the well. During a cement job, cement can be pumped down a casing string in a well, out the bottom of the casing string, and then up the annular space surrounding the casing string. The cement is then allowed to set in the annular space. Wells can also include tubing strings that facilitate flow of fluids through the wells. Hangers can be attached to the casing and tubing strings and received within wellheads to enable these tubular strings to be suspended in the wells from the hangers.
Certain aspects of some embodiments disclosed herein are set forth below. It should be understood that these aspects are presented merely to provide the reader with a brief summary of certain forms the invention might take and that these aspects are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. Indeed, the invention may encompass a variety of aspects that may not be set forth below.
Certain embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to wellhead assemblies and hangers for suspending tubular strings in wells. In some embodiments, a wellhead assembly includes a wellhead housing connected to some other hollow body such that an axial bore extends through the wellhead housing and the other hollow body. The wellhead housing may be casing head, and the other hollow body may be a casing string, a landing mandrel, or another wellhead housing, for example. A clamp or other gripping device applies an inward compression force that securely connects the wellhead housing to the other hollow body. The inward compression force also elastically deforms the wellhead housing or other hollow body into tight, gripping engagement with a wellhead hanger inside the axial bore to allow suspension of a tubular string in a well from the gripped hanger. In some instances, the strength of the grip on the gripped hanger enables the gripped hanger to suspend casing loads from above by transferring all loads on an upper shoulder of the gripped hanger down to the grip.
Various refinements of the features noted above may exist in relation to various aspects of the present embodiments. Further features may also be incorporated in these various aspects as well. These refinements and additional features may exist individually or in any combination. For instance, various features discussed below in relation to one or more of the illustrated embodiments may be incorporated into any of the above-described aspects of the present disclosure alone or in any combination. Again, the brief summary presented above is intended only to familiarize the reader with certain aspects and contexts of some embodiments without limitation to the claimed subject matter.
These and other features, aspects, and advantages of certain embodiments will become better understood when the following detailed description is read with reference to the accompanying drawings in which like characters represent like parts throughout the drawings, wherein:
Specific embodiments of the present disclosure are described below. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, all features of an actual implementation may not be described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers' specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time-consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.
When introducing elements of various embodiments, the articles “a,” “an,” “the,” and “said” are intended to mean that there are one or more of the elements. The terms “comprising,” “including,” and “having” are intended to be inclusive and mean that there may be additional elements other than the listed elements. Moreover, any use of “top,” “bottom,” “above,” “below,” other directional terms, and variations of these terms is made for convenience, but does not require any particular orientation of the components.
Turning now to the present figures, a system 10 is illustrated in
The wellhead hangers 22 can be positioned on landing shoulders 24 within hollow wellhead bodies (e.g., within the tubing and casing heads). These landing shoulders 24 can be integral parts of tubing and casing heads or can be provided by other components, such as sealing assemblies or landing rings disposed in the tubing and casing heads. In some instances, and as discussed in greater detail below, a wellhead hanger 22 can be secured within a hollow wellhead body using a gripping device without landing the wellhead hanger 22 on a landing shoulder 24. Each of the hangers 22 can be connected to a tubular string, such as a tubing string 26 or a casing string 28, to suspend the string within the well 14. The well 14 can include a single casing string 28 or include multiple casing strings 28 of different diameters. Casing strings 28 are often cemented in place within the well. During a cement job, cement is typically pumped down the casing string. A plug is then pumped down the casing string with a displacement fluid (e.g., drilling mud) to cause the cement to flow out of the bottom of the casing string and up the annular space around the casing string.
One example of a wellhead assembly 40 is generally depicted in
Various tubular strings can extend downwardly from the wellhead housing 42 into the well. In
As depicted in
The compression ring 72 can have any suitable form. In some embodiments, the ring 72 is an annular ring with a split in its circumference (i.e., a C-ring) to facilitate contraction of the ring 72 about the casing string 58 when compressed by the bowl 74. In some other embodiments, the ring 72 is a segmented ring having multiple pieces (e.g., two to six pieces), which may be circumferentially arranged about the casing string 58 within the bowl 74 in a manner similar to slips.
As shown in further detail in
Radial compressive forces may result from the tightening of nuts 80 (or bolts) to drive the bowl 74 upward along an incline or deflecting surface. More specifically, as the bowl 74 is driven upward toward wellhead housing 42 during tightening of the clamp 70 by a first amount, a tapered inner surface 84 of the bowl 74 moves along a mating tapered outer surface 82 of the compression ring 72. This mating engagement of the surfaces 82 and 84 pushes the compression ring 72 inwardly, which applies a radially inward compression force against an exterior of the casing string 58 to secure the wellhead housing 42 to the casing string 58 via the clamp 70.
Further tightening of the clamp 70 causes the clamp 70 to apply an increased radially inward compression force on the casing string 58 to elastically deform the casing string 58 inward to securely grip the casing hanger 66. That is, the casing string 58 may be elastically deformed to grip the casing hanger 66 within the inner diameter of the casing string 58. The casing hanger 66 may have a toothed outer surface 86, such as shown in
Rather than connecting a wellhead housing body directly to a casing string, a clamp 70 or other gripping device can be used to connect a wellhead housing body to another hollow body, such as to a landing mandrel or another wellhead housing body. By way of example, a wellhead assembly 90 is depicted in
As shown in
The clamp 70 is installed on the casing head 92 or the landing mandrel 94 before the casing head 92 is positioned on the landing mandrel 94 in at least some cases. In
In some embodiments, such as those of
From the description above, it will be appreciated that the clamp 70 may be actuated to provide both a first grip that secures a wellhead housing (e.g., wellhead housing 42 or casing head 92) to a hollow body (e.g., casing string 58, landing mandrel 94, or another wellhead housing) and also a second grip that secures a wellhead hanger (e.g., casing hanger 66) at a location within an axial bore of a wellhead assembly. In at least some instances, the first and second grips are engaged at different stages of a wellhead installation process. For example, in some cases the first grip is engaged to secure the wellhead housing to a hollow body before running a wellhead hanger into the wellhead assembly. Once the wellhead housing is secured to the hollow body, the wellhead hanger may be run into the wellhead assembly and the second grip may then be engaged to secure that wellhead hanger within the bore. The first grip may be engaged, for example, by tightening the clamp 70 by a first amount that is enough to secure the wellhead housing to the hollow body but not so much as to engage the second grip and interfere with running of the wellhead hanger into the bore. After the wellhead hanger is run into position, the second grip may then be engaged by further tightening the clamp 70 by a second amount. In some cases, one or more additional wellhead hangers may be landed in the wellhead assembly such that they are supported by the wellhead hanger that is securely held with the second grip.
Although a single-acting clamp 70 is shown in
While the aspects of the present disclosure may be susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments have been shown by way of example in the drawings and have been described in detail herein. But it should be understood that the invention is not intended to be limited to the particular forms disclosed. Rather, the invention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the following appended claims.
This patent application claims benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/706,087, filed Jul. 31, 2020, which is entirely incorporated by reference herein.
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