SlipSmart

The SlipSmart system was designed to demonstrate that the system would meet and could in fact exceed the guidelines set forth in industry for a lockout system.

The guidelines to be followed were as follows:

  1. Snubbing equipment shall incorporate design features such that a positive, measureable and recordable transfer of load can be made between slips.
  2. Snubbing equipment shall be designed with (electro/hydraulic) interlock(s) that will not allow accidental release of pipe, at any time, in either heavy or light mode of operation.
  3. Ergonomic features shall be considered in relation to visual confirmation of slip function, load transfer and with respect to dropped object protection.
  4. Bypass of the interlock(s) to enable operations such as running BHA assemblies shall be possible, but controlled by PTW, adequate procedure and supervision.

Components:

Slipsmart Control Box

Each control box that is utilized for the SlipSmart system is able to control two (2) sets of slips. This box communicates wirelessly to the base station and houses the control valves for the slips. These valves monitor the flow of the fluid for slip position as well as allowing or not allowing the flow of hydraulic fluid to the slips. These valves have a self-diagnostic function that will report to the base station if a valve begins to malfunction. These valves operate and receive instructions in milliseconds after the go or no-go signal is received from the base station which means that the operator will have no interruption with the normal flow and rhythm of the job unless the system receives a negative signal and at that time the operator will have the error displayed on the display in the basket mounted monitor.

SlipSmart Imbedded Sensors

Snubco Manufacturing’s patent pended load transfer cells are imbedded into the installed sets of Snubco Cavin style slips. Snubco Manufacturing has been manufacturing these slips for eight (8) years and the design allowed for the sensors to be fully integrated with the slips. Snubco realized that this system must be able to bolt on to any existing snubbing unit or HWU so it designed these sensors to be accepted into a plate that can be fixed below or above any slips as long as there was at least 1 ¼” of space. These sensors could be calibrated to measure a load within +/-150 lbs of neutral during the testing.