Patent Grant
7624799
The field of the invention is protection devices for seal bores or other sensitive areas in tubing through which drilling or other completion procedures that involve rotation take place.
Tubular strings now experience rotational movement of a through tubing drill string. Other completion operations could also involve rotation. Many types of devices that are part of the tubular string have internal seal bores or other sensitive areas that can be damaged by the whip action of the through tubing rotating string. In the past, various solutions have been attempted. In one design, the seal bores are recessed so that the whip motion of the string or the running in and out of the hole on a wireline does not damage the recessed seal bore. An example of such a design is U.S. Pat. No. 5,865,255. Recessing the seal bore then requires equipment able to spread the seals of subsequent equipment introduced into the tubing and designed to seal against the seal bore.
Protective sleeves have been tried to overlay the seal bore but the problem with them was that they were not rotationally locked and the whip action of the through tubing drill string making contact with such a protective sleeve, either eroded it away by spinning it or got the protective sleeve so hot from rotation that it fused itself to the seal bore. This effect ruined the seal bore and made the protective sleeve effectively non-removable.
The problem that has not been addressed by the prior designs has been how to make a removable protective sleeve that is rotationally locked, simple to install before the through tubing operation and just as simple to remove after the through tubing operation when access to the seal bore was needed. The preferred embodiment described below provides the solution for a sleeve that goes in or out simply and is locked rotationally when in place.
The following U.S. patents are generally related to the use of internal seal bores and the sealing assemblies that can engage them: U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,762,211; 2,751,235; 2,754,136; 3,244,424; 4,899,816; 5,180,008 and 6,024,172.
Those skilled in the art will better understand the various embodiments from a description of the preferred embodiment and the drawings that appear below, with the claims defining the full scope of the invention.
A protective sleeve can be inserted through tubing and latched in a manner that resists rotation. At the conclusion of the through tubing operation that involves rotational movement, the sleeve is withdrawn on the string that previously extended through it.
In the run in sequence, the dogs 32 are unsupported as inner sleeve 40 is above them. The dogs 32 are free to be deflected inwardly as sub 12 is advanced.
For retrieval,
The rotational locking can be accomplished by the presence and orientation of the wickers 34 on the dogs 32 acting alone. Alternatively, the dogs 32 can go into longitudinal troughs 50 to obtain the rotational locking feature. As another variation, these features can be combined. The castellation is but one execution of a feature in the preferred embodiment that allows the dogs 32 to be locked in place and then rotationally locks the portion of the device that translates to achieve the locking. In this case the inner sleeve 40, which is the piece of the assembly likely to get direct contact from an internal rotating string, is rotationally locked because of the castellation contact with the lower member 24, which is, in turn, secured to the tubular 44 in a manner that prevents rotation. The components that are threaded together such as for example at thread 74 can have the proper thread orientation so as not to become undone upon receiving impacts from the internal rotating string when the sleeve assembly is in place. Another feature of the device is that the dogs 32 when supported with sleeve 40 are locked in that position due to the interaction of C-ring 54 in groove 56. Should the retrieval of the sub 12 not result in release of the assembly 10, a fishing neck 76 is provided to assist in the removal in a separate run in the hole.
The foregoing disclosure and description of the invention are illustrative and explanatory thereof, and various changes in the size, shape and materials, as well as in the details of the illustrated construction, may be made without departing from the spirit of the invention.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/539,396, filed on Jan. 27, 2004.
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