Furmanite, an industrial specialty maintenance service company, has introduced Smart Shim to its North American customer base.
Smart Shim is an advanced-materials solution manufactured from a PVC-proofed nylon that features good abrasive resistance and is ultrasonically welded for water-tightness. According to Furmanite, the Smart Shim is filled with a specialist polyurethane resin, which reduces excessive wellhead movement caused by wave action on casing conductors. Following precision finite element analysis and design, Smart-Shim chocks are cast in-situ so that the chock forms to fit the exact dimensions of the gap between the conductor tube and guides.
Furmanite and its European project management supplier, AMEC, introduced the Smart Shim to the oil and gas industry in 2002, and are providing North American customers with a full-service solution – from on-site measurement, design, and Finite Element Analysis (FEA), to manufacture and on-site casting of the chocks. This alliance and the Smart Shim Solution have delivered exceptional results, the company says. One such success story is the recent initiative on the Shell Expro Nelson platform in the North Sea. This job was the largest Smart Shim installation undertaken to date.
"The problem of extreme wellhead movement is recognized throughout the oil and gas industry," Ken Brown, senior mechanical engineer at Shell, says. "There is no doubt that when serious damage does occur, the safety implications and costs of shutdown and replacement are significant. The Smart Shim solution and accompanying FEA seems to provide an innovative and reliable alternative."
Following FEA by AMEC, it became apparent that the Smart Shim was needed at the Nelson offshore site. Furmanite technicians installed the Smart Shim on eleven 26-in. conductors, each at elevations of 46 ft and 75 ft. Overall, Furmanite installed 90 chocks at the site.
The Smart Shim is designed to achieve the resilience required to hold the conductor firmly in place, prevent damage in the guides, and provide sufficient absorption qualities necessary to avoid further shock damage. Furmite says each Smart-Shim is fitted on-site to the exact required dimensions, eliminating all difficulties related to fitting or staying in place.
The Smart Shim technology tailors a chock that fits perfectly, stays in place, and meets the wear resistance strength and elasticity requirements needed to provide an ideal, long-lasting solution, the company says.
