In the hydrocarbon recovery art, there has long been interest in greater monitoring and control of the downhole environment in order to enhance production of target fluids while eschewing those having little or no commercial value. Such interest has over the years led to significant movements toward instrumentation. With instrumentation, conductors are needed to transmit information to remote locations including surface locations. While hydraulic control lines have been a mainstay for connection with the downhole environment, their use requires a large amount of stored excess hydraulic fluid. Such storage increases a footprint of a rig and is thus undesirable. Electrical conductors have helped to eliminate or at least reduce the hydraulic fluid necessary on the rig. Optic fibers have more recently been found to be even of more interest due to higher data speeds and the ability to use the fiber itself as a monitoring device. In order to use optic fiber though, it must be connected in some way to the tool string being run in the hole. While there are many currently existing ways to secure fiber or electric cable to the string, not every situation is addressed. The art will thus continually appreciate new and different ways to secure conductors so that the possibilities available to address particular situations are plentiful and ubiquitous.
A conductor mounting configuration includes a conductor having a signal carrying portion, and insulative portion radially outwardly disposed of the signal carrying portion and a jacket radially outwardly disposed of the insulative portion; an intermediary material having a thickness selected to accommodate a heat based fusion to the jacket while requiring a heat load of less than that associated with damage to the conductor; and a heat fusion affixing the conductor to the intermediate material.
A method for affixing a conductor to a separate structure includes selecting an intermediary material including at least a portion thereof having a thickness ranging from about equal to a thickness of a jacket of the conductor to about double the thickness of the jacket; bringing the conductor into contact with a portion of the intermediary material having the stated thickness range; inducing a heat fusion between the portion of the intermediary material contacting the jacket and the jacket; and fusing a portion of the intermediary material not fused to the jacket to the separate structure.
A method for affixing a conductor to a separate structure includes matching an intermediary material thickness of an intermediary material depending from a conductor to a target downhole component thickness; and fusing a portion of the intermediary material not fused to the jacket to the separate structure.
Referring now to the drawings wherein like elements are numbered alike in the several Figures:
Referring to
The tubing encapsulated conductor 16 is illustrated in
Heat loading of the conductor 16 is also the reason for the existence of the intermediary material. A component of a downhole tool to which the conductor is to be affixed will invariably be of a substantially greater thickness than the material thickness of jacket 14. This presented a problem that the present inventors solved through the particular construction and method disclosed herein. A conductor undergoing a welding process to a downhole component would experience a heat load well in excess of the capacity of the insulative material simply because in order to melt the downhole component, a lot more heat is necessary. This can potentially result in at least some damage to the fiber 10 and possibly in rupture of the jacket 14. In the event jacket 14 is ruptured, the resulting shock wave generally breaks the fiber 10 and the conductor 16 is useless, at least beyond the breakage area.
Due to the controlled thickness of the intermediary material 18, the heat load is as noted above, controlled. The intermediary material itself provides additional weld area where an effective weld can be used to affix the conductor to the component. In one embodiment, illustrated in
In an alternate embodiment, referring to
The above combination of conductor 16 and intermediary material 18, after being welded together, may be installed on one surface of a shroud material that is then helically coiled to produce a tubular structure to be used as a shroud at a downhole tool. One of ordinary skill in the art will be familiar with the helical coiling of a sheet of shroud material to produce a tubular structure. This method for creation of a tubular shroud is well known in the art and does not require any further teaching. The combination disclosed herein is welded linearly onto the strip of shroud material and thus, when the shroud material is coiled into a tubular structure, the combination assumes a helix itself at an inside dimension of the resulting tubular shroud. It is to be appreciated that a shroud is used only as an example, and other downhole components can be substituted therefore.
While preferred embodiments have been shown and described, modifications and substitutions may be made thereto without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, it is to be understood that the present invention has been described by way of illustrations and not limitation.
The present application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/991,420, filed Nov. 30, 2007, the entire contents of which are specifically incorporated herein by reference.
Number | Date | Country | |
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60991420 | Nov 2007 | US |