Tough tools for heavy work on oil rigs

摘要

The comparison to a raw egg appears to be far-fetched, but is nonetheless very close to the mark: Touching a drill pipe on one of these gigantic oil rigs, rotating it, lifting it, turning it round, is a difficult act - not to mention the loads with which they have to cope. However, on closer inspection, this means very little, for 1,380 metric tons usually pose no problems for special tools, the so-called oil tools. Jens Lutzhoeft, production manager at Blohm + Voss Repair GmbH, Oil Tool Division - a ThyssenKrupp Technologies company - has discovered this. With Hanseatic sobriety, he presents the intricately manufactured tools, which from an external observer's viewpoint do not look impressive, in the workshop on the shipbuilding yard in Hamburg. It is hardly imaginable that one of these "Power Slips" could grasp und hold a drill pipe weighing 750 metric tons. What connection does this have to the topic of materials? "A great deal," says Lutzhoeft, "for touching a drill pipe is a highly sensitive task. The pipe can be up to one meter in diameter; however, the pipe itself has a comparatively low wall thickness. The tool must be adjusted pre- cisely to it, otherwise the pipe will collapse."