Hardide Coatings (Bicester, United Kingdom), a global manufacturer of advanced tungsten-carbide coatings, collaborated with DeltaTek Global (Aberdeen, United Kingdom) to develop a coating solution for subsea drilling applications. The Hardide-T line of chemical vapour deposition (CVD) tungsten carbide-based coatings was designed for DeltaTek’s ArticuLock, a tool that provides subsea hardware operators with extended weather windows and removes bending fatigue in subsea running tools and landing strings.
Hardide Coatings and DeltaTek worked to manufacture a coating that met certain standards for hardness, thickness and smooth surface finish, thereby enabling it to perform in harsh oil and gas drilling environments. With that in mind, the Hardide-T serves as a key component for the ArticuLock, a complex shaped ball and socket pivot joint that is subject to extreme loads of up to 400 metric tons (440 t), 5,000 psi (34 MPa) of working pressure and 30,000 ft lbs (40674 Nm) of torque.
“The geometry of the [ArticuLock] pivot joint body is complex and Hardide-T provided the only solution that combines the necessary wear properties with ductility and the ability to coat such designs,” Horn said. “The Hardide coating delivers in each of these areas and is an important part of the tool’s success in offering significant cost benefits to oil and gas operators worldwide.”
In addition to the ArticuLock, the Seacure cementing tool is another DeltaTek technology that will receive the Hardide Coatings when it is field tested in early 2019.
Source: Hardide Coatings, www.hardide.com