New modeling approach assists BOP design

A new modeling approach developed by the Southwest Research Institute will provide insights into offshore blowout preventer performance and design, the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement has announced. A blowout preventer, or BOP, is the device fitted to the top of a well bore during drilling operations, to seal the wellhead in the event of a well loss-of-control incident.

BSEE has contracted with the Southwest Research Institute to develop and validate a means of analyzing blowout preventer performance through structural and fluid dynamics simulation using commercially available software.

“The emergency closure of a wellbore with a BOP is a highly complicated process in which high strength steel pipe must be cut and pinched closed under extreme pressure and flow conditions,” Steven Green from the Southwest Research Institute told the Ocean Energy Safety Institute’s Public Technology Assessment Program Forum, on Feb. 17. “We have also developed a database tool that, when completed, will hold simulation results and allow BSEE and industry to interactively assess the basic design requirements of a BOP under its expected operating conditions.”

- ALAN BAILEY