Advances in inflatable packer technology and application

摘要

Advances in inflatable packer technology have been made in response to the demands of increasingly severe application environments resulting from deeper and deeper underground mining activities, often in remote locations. These include the development of tools to enable deep high pressure permeability testing and hydraulic fracturing activities such as pre-conditioning for block caving, rockburst mitigation and stress testing. In some cases, oilfield type equipment has been adapted for deep underground drilling activities requiring high pressure waterflow control. All of this was implemented using an Australian developed inflatable packer technology. Future developments of this technology may play a role in shale oil and gas exploration and production as well as hard rock in situ leach mining.