oil & gas
DMLS is opening new doors for the product designers at APS, he said. “With many of our tools, we have significant space constraints. Everything has to fit inside a drill collar, which by the time you get several thousand feet deep be- comes quite small, oftentimes leaving us with a space just a couple inches across to run seals, hydraulic lines, wiring and all the electronics needed to operate the MWD system.”
The ‘Impossible’ Made Possible with AM Because DMLS enables designers to make complex ge- ometries that were previously unmanufacturable, challenges such as these become far more manageable. Honeycomb lattice structures, for example, and thin but strong webbing can be created, producing parts that are far more space effi- cient than their traditionally machined counterparts, maximiz- ing available real estate.
Another advantage of DMLS is the ability to create “organ- ic” shapes, such as gently sloped surfaces and curved holes. “We used to drill these long, angled holes, maybe 3/16" [4.8- mm] diameter by 10" [254 mm] or so deep, and get them to intersect similar holes drilled from the other end,” Funke said. “Deburring features like that is difficult, and you run the risk of sharp internal edges that might chafe wires or cause inef- ficient hydraulic fluid flow. Now, with the EOSINT M 280, we just print a smooth, curved hole, in whatever profile is needed for the application. It solves a lot of problems for us.” DMLS also allows APS to “compress” the total length of its drill assembly, bringing the MWD components closer to the drilling head. This improves well drilling accuracy and reduces product cost. “Because we have greater design freedom, we can potentially shorten the entire drill stream, minimizing the delay between what’s just been drilled and the actual measure- ment,” said Funke. “That’s the end goal of any MWD system.”
Steering Towards the Future Paul Seaton agreed: “If you look at some of our devices,
they’re very angular because that’s been the easiest—and often the only—way to machine them. DMLS opens the possibility of building parts with streamlined, natural shapes. This provides an optimized flow path for the drilling fluids and helps minimize the erosion caused by sharp turns. That’s not something we’ve done yet, but it’s certainly a potential for some of our high-ero- sion areas. The possibilities are really quite fascinating.” So Funke and his colleagues are working on additional
component redesigns, including one that “looks like a piece of Swiss cheese” and has reduced the part count in a drilling assembly from four separate components to just one. DMLS is also providing cost savings in the company’s extensive machine shop, where jigs and fixtures that once took days or weeks to machine can now be printed, untended, overnight. Aside from the advantages APS has seen in part-count
reduction and novel component shapes, designers are find- ing that product development cycles are substantially shorter. “Many of our components have historically been made of cast materials with very long lead times,” Funke said. “It sometimes took months to get the prototypes parts needed for a complete system evaluation. Now we can design sev- eral variations of whatever is needed, print a batch of parts, and complete a test cycle in just a few weeks.” Furthermore, APS no longer needs to invest in molds and other tooling that might only be used once. All that’s needed is a CAD model and the metal powder to build them. “We have a lot of plans for the EOSINT M 280,” said Funke. The use of DMLS may be opening other doors for APS. Because the AM process can produce parts that are far closer to their intended geometry than previously possible, downstream machining operations are often reduced, and in some cases eliminated entirely. “We might give the shop a DMLS part that once took 18 hours to traditionally produce from bar stock,” he said. “That part would have taken 22–26 hours to print, but it could have features that could not have been traditionally manufactured, such as organic holes. “Now to finish that part would only take 3–4 hours to machine sealing surfaces and tight tolerance features. So by using DMLS we’ve freed up the machine shop by 14–15 hours to run other product. DMLS is changing our entire manufacturing flow, potentially giving us greater capacity to work on other projects, or even bid on outside work.” The opportunities are endless, Seaton pointed out. “Tradi- tional manufacturing methods have gotten us this far, but the im- proved efficiencies of parts created with DMLS are gamechang- ers,” he says. “It creates a domino effect, where longer product lifespans lead to less disruption for equipment maintenance, greater drilling time, and lower costs. Ultimately, this makes for a happier customer and additional sales orders.”
Edited by Yearbook Editor James D. Sawyer from information provided by EOS North America.
50 — Energy Manufacturing 2016
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