"A manufacturer of hydraulic fracturing components for the oil and gas industry utilized NVision's full spectrum of engineering services - from consulting to 3D scanning, CAD modeling and 3D non-contact inspection - to improve the design of crucial parts and speed their certification," said a company spokesperson. "NVision was able to compare multiple versions of the same parts and determine geometric variation between the versions that passed tests and those that failed. That information was then used by NVision engineers to develop new 3D CAD models with critical dimensions and tolerances, leading to improved designs and faster certification of the parts.
"The hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking,' process involves pumping a fracturing fluid into a well bore at a high enough pressure to cause the formation to crack, facilitating the flow of oil and gas from the formation to the well. A slurry material called proppant, which commonly consists primarily of sand or ceramic material, is then injected into the fracture to prop it open, thereby increasing the flow of formation fluids. The high pressures involved in this process require parts that are precisely designed and manufactured. Failure under high pressure can result in catastrophic failure, so proper design and tight tolerances are paramount.
"The parts were originally designed by an overseas engineering design company, but the manufacturer ran into problems when some of the outsourced part designs failed to withstand the testing. Forced to go back to the drawing board to determine whether it was a design or a production tolerance problem, the manufacturer found that the geometry of these parts was too complex for hand measurement or CMM probing alone. It needed another way to accurately capture and compare the complex geometries of the passing versus failing versions of the parts."
The manufacturer contacted NVision, which held a series of meetings at several of the manufacturer's facilities in order to develop the best approach to resolving the design issue. The manufacturer decided that NVision should handle the project. NVision's engineers would determine the 3D variance measurements of several parts with the company's HandHeld Scanner, analyze and develop features crucial to the parts' performance, then create nominal CAD models for new versions of the parts.
NVision engineers performed detailed scans (accurate to +/- 0.001") with the HandHeld scanner to determine the geometrical differences between passing and failing parts. Engineers then used that information to create the nominal CAD models with manufacturing tolerances.
"NVision's highly accurate 3D scans, inspection comparison of complex parts and reverse engineering expertise enabled it to deliver to the manufacturer nominal CAD models that improved the geometry, tolerance and funtionality of the parts," said the spokesperson. "Those design changes resulted in rapid certification of the parts and faster entry into the production phase."
For more information contact:
NVision, Inc.
440 Wrangler Dr.
Suite 200
Coppell, TX 75019
972-393-8000
sales@nvision3d.com
www.nvision3d.com