Possible Alternatives for Deep―Water Gas Charged Accumulators.doc

Possible Alternatives for Deep―Water Gas Charged Accumulators 　　Received 8 May 2012； accepted 14 June 2012 　　Abstract 　　Gas Charged Accumulators are widely used in Drilling operations； however， the current Accumulator design methods are inadequate for Deepwater Drilling. Gas―Charged Accumulators are used in subsea drilling as well as production operations. One important application of accumulators is in blowout preventers （BOPs）. BOP’s are designed to shut in a well under pressure so that the well control procedures could be implemented. Control Systems for the BOPs should be highly efficient hydraulic systems and operate in as short a time as possible. Supplying enough volume of pressured hydraulic fluid to operate those emergency functions is essential. To have the necessary quantity of control fluid under pressure requires storing this fluid in accumulators. 　　Gas Charged Accumulators are the most commonly used accumulators in Drilling operations. These accumulators are not efficient at all in Deep waters， and there are not many alternatives for them. This paper looks into possible alternatives for Gas Charged Accumulators in Deep Waters. 　　Supplying enough volume of pressurized hydraulic fluid to operate the BOPs for emergency situations is essential for Deep Water Drilling. This requires storing the pressurized hydraulic fluid in accumulators. A problem may arise when the wellhead is at water depth of more than 3500 ft. In deep water drilling， the accumulators should be placed on the subsea BOP stack to reduce hydraulic response times and provide a hydraulic power supply in case of interruption of surface communication. Hydraulic fluid capacity of an accumulator may drop to 15% of its capacity on the surface and even less， depending on the water depth. The reason for this is that the nitrogen gas does not behave like an ideal gas as we go to very deep water， due to high hydrostatic pressure at that water depth. 　　We have to look for alternatives to Gas Cha