Customer: Halliburton NZ
Date: April 2014
We were approached by Halliburton recently to provide a solution for them in their testing laboratory. They have a CT-744 Versa Tester made by Soiltest Inc. The Versa Tester is a compression testing device used to measure the force required to break 2” cube cement samples. These are samples of cement that have been manufactured for use in oil and gas exploration wells.
The Versa Tester consists of a hydraulic ram with the pressure applied to the ram connected to two analogue pressure gauges which indicate the force applied in lbs up to 30,000 lbs. These gauges also have a drag pointer so they can display the peak force applied before the sample broke.
They were keen to replace the analogue gauges with something more accurate, reliable, and cost effective to calibrate. We said, simply replace them with a Crystal XP2i (the most accurate and reliable digital gauges in the world) with a custom scale setup for them.
To setup the custom scale we needed to convert a psi value (pounds per square inch) into lbs.
To do this we needed to work out the effective are of the hydraulic ram in square inches. The ram diameter was 6-1/8” or 6.125”. We know the area of a circle is πR2. Therefore the area of the ram = 3.14159 x (6.125/2)2 = 29.46470297So at 30,000 lbs the applied psi value would be 30,000 / 29.46470297 = 1018.17 psi.
We supplied them with a 140 bar XP2i, setup with the custom scale to display the applied force in lbs, along with a 3ft Ralston hose and fittings. Now when they are running a test they simply use the peak hold function on the XP2i to determine the exact force applied when the cement sample breaks. It’s highly accurate, very reliable, and easy to use. And when they need to have it calibrated they can simply disconnect the XP2i and send it in to us for calibration.