Video: 3D Printed Oil and Gas Parts Made of PEEK

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Carbon-fiber-reinforced polyether-ether-ketone (PEEK) can replace steel in many oil and gas component applications, providing not just lightweight strength but also corrosion resistance surpassing that of even stainless steel. And additive manufacturing aids this replacement, providing a way to make the PEEK part that is apt to be faster and cheaper than machining it from billet. During a visit to polymer AM technology provider Roboze, I saw various 3D printed oil and gas parts made of PEEK. They include a large fitting seal that started as a precise 3D printed solid cylinder, plus an O ring, a check valve closure and a downhole nozzle (that looks strangely like a shark head).

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Transcript

Why would a solid cylinder be 3D printed out of reinforced polymer? That's what this part is. It is made of carbon fiber, polyether-ether-ketone, PEEK. And it was 3D printed on a fused filament fabrication machine from Roboze. I actually saw this part during a visit to Roboze's North American headquarters in Houston, Texas.

We usually associate 3D printing, additive manufacturing with geometrically intricate parts. So why would this solid polymer, 7.6 pound cylinder ever be made through 3D printing?

Well, this part is a fitting for a downhole oil field application. It connects two pipes together. You can see here, the part with the precision threads that have been machined in. For a part like this needed in low enough quantities that molding, for example, really isn't a practical approach, another alternative is to machine the part out of a solid billet of material. But to machine this big form out of solid billet would entail a lot of wasted material cut away, and also very likely a long lead time wait to obtain that large of a piece of reinforced PEEK material to start with. By contrast, this part was 3D printed in about three and a half days, and it was made so close to net shape that the amount of material lost to machining was very minimal.

Reinforced PEEK, because of its corrosion resistance combined with its strength, is a commonly used material in oil and gas applications, in demanding oil and gas applications, and 3D printing expands the possibilities. Roboze makes a precise industrial polymer additive manufacturing system. It has machines that are filament fed or granulate fed. And in either case, its systems support the development of various applications of reinforced PEEK in oil and gas applications, and for hardware that sees harsh conditions.

Here are some other examples:

This seat ring for a ball valve is PEEK. This one is not reinforced, but this part, sees operating conditions that include pressures up to 450 bar temperatures up to 250 centigrade. All while being exposed to corrosive fluids. The virtue of 3D printing this part, instead of making it some other way, is it doesn't have to be stocked. It doesn't have to be warehoused. It doesn't have to be ordered. It can instead be just produced on demand as needed. 3D printing this ring took about three hours.

This part is a replica. It's been modified a little bit to protect a proprietary design. But this is the closure for a check valve, and in this case, reinforced PEEK replaced a component that used to be steel.

The steel version of this part was apt to corrode. In fact, corrosion was so much a part of the operation of this part that it's just accepted it had to be replaced frequently and routinely.

The reinforced polymer version of this part, much more corrosion resistant, has a much longer service life between needing replacement. And in addition, it weighs about half as much as the steel parts. So the replacement is that much easier.

This component looks so much like the head of a shark. That is just a coincidence. It is actually part of a system for applying concrete deep, deep down inside an oil well. Concrete to fill in the gaps between pipes of two different diameters that are concentric with one another, put concrete into the annular gap between them. The concrete comes out of the shark's eyes.

Machining is the reason why reinforced PEEK was used here. But not in the way that you might think. Here, the polymer replaces aluminum. To machine this geometric form out of reinforced PEEK, like all these nooks and crannies and geometries, that would not be a practical way to make this part, but 3D printing offers a way to just get this form in an entirely automated and unattended process. And then, long after that, when the pieces in use down deep, deep in that oil well, the way to remove it, the way to get it out of that hole, is by cutting it out, by machining it away. That's the quickest way to do it. This oil production system is very expensive. Can't be kept waiting. So, this part is just cut away out of the hole, and that PEEK is much more machineable. Easier to cut out of the hole quickly and get oil production back up and running.