Controlled aperture ball drop
AssigneeOil States Energy Services, L.L.C.
InventorsJoel H. Young, Ronald B. Beason, Nicholas J. Cannon, Bob McGuire, Danny Lee Artherholt
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A controlled aperture ball drop includes a ball cartridge that is mounted to a frac head or a high pressure fluid conduit. The ball cartridge houses a ball rail having a bottom end that forms an aperture with an inner periphery of the ball cartridge through which frac balls of a frac ball stack supported by the ball rail are sequentially dropped from the frac ball stack as a size of the aperture is increased by an aperture controller operatively connected to the ball rail.
Claims10
A controlled aperture ball drop, comprising:
- a cylinder having a top end sealed by a top cap and a bottom end adapted to be connected to a frac head or a high pressure fluid conduit;
- a frac ball support adapted to support a frac ball stack in an ascending size sequence within the cylinder;
- an aperture control arm operatively connected to the frac ball support, the aperture control arm being movable to incrementally control a size of a ball drop aperture between an inner periphery of the cylinder and a bottom end of the frac ball support to sequentially drop frac balls from the frac ball stack, the aperture control arm extending through a port in a sidewall of the cylinder;
- an aperture controller that moves the aperture control arm to control the size of the ball drop aperture, the aperture controller being mounted to an outer periphery of the cylinder;
- and
- a control console that transmits a ball drop command to the aperture controller.
A controlled aperture ball drop, comprising:
- a frac ball support that supports a frac ball stack arranged in a predetermined size sequence within a cylinder having a top end sealed by a threaded top cap and a bottom end adapted to be mounted to a frac head or a high pressure fluid conduit;
- an aperture controller operatively connected to the frac ball support, the aperture controller incrementally controlling a size of an aperture between a bottom end of the frac ball support and an inner periphery of the cylinder to sequentially drop the frac balls from the frac ball stack;
- an aperture control arm connecting the aperture controller to the frac ball support;
- and
- a radial clamp that encircles the cylinder and supports the aperture controller, the radial clamp comprising a bore aligned with a port in the cylinder through which the aperture control arm is incrementally moved by the aperture controller.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.