RR Valve Engineering News
 Excessive pump wear can be traced directly to improper settings or location of High Pressure Relief Valves. Denial or lack of information in this area is causing cost of operations and safety to be called into question.
The history of the commodity reset relief valves in the market place has been one of dismal failure. One set off was cause for replacement and repair. Human nature being what it is, the industry started over-setting the pressure on the
reset relief valves or going to a rupture disc that again would be set high enough that the pump would not exceed the pressure, thus interrupting drilling operations.
The idea of saving the expensive pump with a relatively low cost relief valve was turned inside out with the practice being
"run the pump into the ground" trying to save the pop off valve.
With valves that have been reset over 80 times without failure, RR valve has made that practice unnecessary. Quoting here from
Tri-Point's technical support and development department on overloading of the power ends: "Biggest issue here is lack of understanding, you can not run at pressures higher than the liners are rated for, this happens most commonly with the larger liner sizes and surface drilling. The rod loads seen on the pump bearings can be in excess of 150,000 foot pounds at each stroke; this is very hard on the pump. Keeping the HP relief valve adjusted properly is the only defense for these issues. Another source of overloading is a plugged discharge cross on the strainer block. This can only happen when the high PSI relief valve is plumbed in the wrong side of the pump. Rig hands start to see reduced flow on the floor and crank up the pump to compensate. If the Relief valve is mounted on the side of the strainer block and the strainer becomes plugged then the valve can not trip and the pump will overload until the motors stall or belt drives slip; and on chain drives, the valve cap has actually been known to blow off the pump." |
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RR Valve recommends no
spare parts for the first 2 years of service, regardless of number of
set-offs! Our valves are safe and reliable and EXTREMELY cost-effective!
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