Patent Application
20060273213
The present invention relates in general to coil tubing systems and in particular to a level-wind system for coil tubing units.
Level-wind systems have been provided for spooling coiled tubing onto a reel when removing the tubing from a well and guiding the tubing off of the reel when injecting the tubing in a well. In many of the prior systems, the level-wind system is positioned by the reel's drive mechanism. These systems included many shortcomings that result in mechanical failures or failure to properly spool the tubing on or off of the reel. Additionally, the tubing guide heads of these prior systems are not adaptable to various tubing diameters and are subject to excess failures. These prior systems are also expensive to implement, maintain, and operate.
An improved level-wind system was taught in co-owned U.S. Pat. No. 6,264,128, which is incorporated by reference herein. The level-wind system of the '128 patent addressed many of the shortcomings of the prior level-wind systems.
However, there still exists a need to further address the shortcomings of the prior level-wind systems. It is a still further desire to provide an improved tubing guide head.
Thus, it is a desire of the present invention to provide a level-wind system that addresses shortcomings and disadvantages of the prior level-wind systems.
It is a further desire of the present invention to provide a level-wind system that is less expensive to manufacture, maintain, and operate relative to prior art systems.
It is a still further desire of the present invention to provide a level-wind system that reduces points of failures in relation to the prior systems.
It is a still further desire of the present invention to provide a level-wind system which can accommodate multiple sizes of tubing without requiring adjustment or replacement of parts.
Accordingly, a level-wind head and level-wind system for coiled tubing is provided. The system including a coiled tubing reel mounted for rotation about a horizontal axis, a level-wind head comprising only one pair rollers mounted in spaced relation to one another to form a throat sized to pass various outside diameter coiled tubing, without replacement or repositioning of the pair of rollers, to or from the reel, and a positioning system in connection with the level-wind head for selectively positioning the level-wind head proximate the reel.
The foregoing has outlined the features and technical advantages of the present invention in order that the detailed description of the invention that follows may be better understood. Additional features and advantages of the invention will be described hereinafter which form the subject of the claims of the invention.
The foregoing and other features and aspects of the present invention will be best understood with reference to the following detailed description of a specific embodiment of the invention, when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
Refer now to the drawings wherein depicted elements are not necessarily shown to scale and wherein like or similar elements are designated by the same reference numeral through the several views.
A level-wind system 22 having an arm 24 and a level-wind head, or roller head, 26 is positioned proximate reel 12. Level-wind head 26 serves to hold and guide coiled tubing T to and from reel 12. Arm 24 of the present embodiment includes an elongated member 28 having a first end 30 pivotedly connected to a support structure 32 and a free end 34. Level-wind head 26 is connected to free end 34.
A positioning system comprising a vertical positioning mechanism 36 and a horizontal positioning mechanism 38 in connection with arm 24 may be provided. The positioning system facilitates precise positioning of level-wind head 26 relative to reel 12. A positioning system is provided in co-owned U.S. Pat. No. 6,264,138 which is incorporated herein by reference. The positioning system may be operated independently of the rotation of reel 12. Desirably, the positioning system maintains a force on coiled tubing T.
In the embodiment of
Vertical and horizontal positioning mechanisms 36, 38 are shown connected between arm 24 and support structure 32 for positioning level-wind head 26 relative to reel 26. As illustrated positioning mechanisms 36, 38 are hydraulic cylinders. Again, the positioning system and hydraulic circuits are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,264,128 which is incorporated herein. Other positioning systems may be utilized and fall within the scope of the present invention.
Arm assembly 46 is described with reference to
Horizontal positioning mechanism 38 is a leadscrew system for converting rotary to linear motion. Horizontal position mechanism 38 includes leadscrew 52, actuator 54 and arm 24. Arm 24 is a nut that is slidingly mounted on leadscrew 52 in a manner such that arm 24 and level-wind head 26 move substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis of reel 12 in response to the rotation of leadscrew 52 as illustrated by the arrow in
Referring back to
As described with reference to
As shown in
From the foregoing detailed description of specific embodiments of the invention, it should be apparent that a level-wind coil tubing system that is novel and unobvious has been disclosed. Although specific embodiments of the invention have been disclosed herein in some detail, this has been done solely for the purposes of describing various features and aspects of the invention, and is not intended to be limiting with respect to the scope of the invention. It is contemplated that various substitutions, alterations, and/or modifications, including but not limited to those implementation variations which may have been suggested herein, may be made to the disclosed embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims which follow.
