Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
ABSTRACT
This paper classifies sucker-rod joint failures, Sucker-rod joint failures have always been a
analyzes the stresses involved in the standard source of grief to the oil producer; and will con-
API joint, attempts to explain the cause of the tinue to be until someone devises a better joint,
breaks that occur, and suggests possible remedies far less vulnerable to fatigue than the present API
for the situation. Anew undercut joint is explained,
which is now under field test. This new undercut standard. However, an understanding of the nature
pin i s of such design that it can be made from I
of the failure, and the stresses and contributing
present sucker-rod pin forgings. An entirely new I
factors involved, can aid materially in reducing
joint i s also proposed, and the reasoning for its
presumed superiority is given. 1
the incidence of such failures even with our pres-
ent standard joint.
Classes of Failures the Goodman diagram2 which illustrates the effect
A l l joint failures fall in one of four classes: 1, of range of stress.
completely unscrewing in service; 2, wear a s illus- Before going further in discussing actual failures
trated in Fig. 1; .3, failure resulting from workman- and means of combating them, it would be well to
ship or material defects; and 4, fatigue of metal, have a clear understanding of the quality and quan-
usually accelerated by corrosion. The first two tity of s t r e s s e s involved in the sucker-rod joint
suggest their own remedy. The third, fortunately, under both static and dynamic conditions.
i s extremely rare and it, too, suggests its own Stress in Sucker-rod Joint
remedy. In the hundreds of joint failures examined These s t r e s s e s can be most easily comprehended
by the writer, no breaks have been found in the pin by visualizing a spring-loaded analogue a s shown
proper or in the coupling which are definitely diagrammatically in Fig. 5 and 6. Referring to Fig.
chargeable to original defects, with the exception 5, assume spring B to be exerting a pull of 10 Ib
of one pin failure where the coupling face was in the assembly. There will then be a reacting
0.017 in. out of parallel with the pin shoulder face. pressure of 10 Ib a t the contact faces A . Now, if
A few pin ends broken in the wrench square, a s in- we hang a load of 6 lb on the hook, pressure a t A
dicated by an m o w in Fig. 2,' have been inspected. will be reduced to 4 Ib; hence, the faces must
All such are definitely caused by forging defects. s t i l l be in contact, If the faces are s t i l l in con-
T h e fourth class, or the break resulting from tact, there has been no change in length of the
fatigue failure, represents about 90 percent of the spring, and no change in length means no change
source of trouble and is, of course, the hardest to in s t r e s s or pull. Therefore, a s long a s the load
understand or combat. The nature and cause of hung on the hook is l e s s than the pull exerted
fatigue failures i s not within the scope of this by the spring, there will be no change in s t r e s s in
paper. Very able and comprehensive literature on the spring. When the load does exceed the spring's
the subject is available.' It can simply be said initial pull, the faces separate and all the load i s
that the endurance life of a metal part subject to carried directly by the spring. The spring B is, of
fatigue can be improved by: I , lowering the s t r e s s course, analogous to that part of the sucker-rod
a s by increasing the metal area; 2, decreasing the pin between its shoulder and the last full thread.
rate of corrosion, a s by use of inhibitors; 3, de- The body C i s analogous to the corresponding part
creasing the range of s t r e s s ; and 4, eliminating of the coupling, and the initial load in spring B i s
s t r e s s raisers such a s sharp notches placed at analogous to the initial load s e t up in the pin by
critical points. Fig. 3 i s a graph which shows the proper tightening of the joint.
relationship between fatigue life, both in air and of course, the coupling wall i s compressible, s o
in brine, and magnitude of stress; and Fig. 4 shows a more accurate analogy i s illustrated in Fig. 6
*w. C . Nonis, Mfr., Inc., Tulsa. where the body C of Fig.5 i s repfaced with a heavy
t Presented at the sprmg meetlng of the Mid-Cont~nent District, spring C. Here again we will assume an initial ten-
D ~ _ v l s ~ oofn Product~on,W ~ c h ~ t a
Kans.,
, March 1952. s i o n of 10 Ib in spring B and will further assume
' ~ e f e r e n c e sare at the end of the paper. that it elongates 10 centimeters for every ~ o u n dof
SUCKER-ROD JOINT FAILURES 215
- --
load imposed on it. A l s o assume that spring C, s t e a d of t h e original 10 Ib, the tendency would
being larger and stiffer, deflects one centimeter then be t o i n c r e a s e the compression in the outer
for every pound of loade imposed on it. When we spring, t h u s in turn shortening and decreasing the
again h a n g 6 Ib on the hook, the pressure a t A will inner spring's load to something l e s s than the 10.6
again be reduced to 4 Ib, and the f a c e s will s t i l l be lb when equilibrium i s e s t a b l i s h e d . So it becomes
in contact; but s p r i n g C will elongate 6 centimeters, evident that the pull or s t r e s s of the inner spring
being relieved of 6 Ib of i t s compression, resulting i s not proportional to the load added to the hook;
in s p r i n g B elongating an equal amount. Ilowever, or, in terms of the sucker-rod joint, the s t r e s s in
6 centimeters on spring B r e p r e s e n t s six-tenths of the pin i s a f a c t o r not only of the load on the string,
a pound; therefore, i t s tension i s increased from but i s a factor of the respective a r e a s of the cou-
10 lb to 10.6 lb by the addition of 6 lb load. IJow- pling and pin a s well. It a l s o becomes evident that
ever, now having 10.6 Ib on the inner spring in- t h e initial s t r e s s imposed in the spring by proper
tightening must exert a load on the contact f a c e s
1 KEY
greater than any load which might be imposed on
t h e rod s t r i n g s o that the f a c e s will not s e p a r a t e
under that load.
Keeping in mind the inter-action of the two
springs, but shifting our thinking from the ana-
logue to the actual pin and coupling, a more e x a c t
mathematical a n a l y s i s follows.
Calculations
Let: W = load on rod string, in Ib.
LP = tensile load in pin resulting from com-
bined effect of initial tightening and
t h e working load, in lb..
LC = compression load in coupling resulting
from combined effect of initial tighten-
ing and the working load, in Ib.
'Then equilibrium requires that:
Lp = L C+ k (1)
Tv'hen 'CI/ = 0, or when s t r e s s e s in the joint a r e
OMPRESSION IN COUPLING. the r e s u l t of tightening alone, the
OlNT O F PIN FAILURE.
compressive force in the coupling and-
the tensile force in the pin are equal;
therefore:
OlNT O F COUPLING FAILURE. Let: Li = initial load, in Ib, a t shoulder resulting
from tightening alone.
Ae = unit pin elongation with LP'
AXlWUW TENSION I N COUPLING
Aeo= unit pin elongation with LL alone.
Ap = area of pin a t root of threads.
Snbtrac ting: L LI
Ae-Ae =-J---
O APE APE
Similarly for the coupling:
Ac = unit coupling elongation with LC.
Ace = unit coupling elongation with L .
Ac = area of coupling a t major thread diameter.
Then: T r
L
= c and =-Ace1
.4cE ACE
Let S = pin s t r e s s in pounds per square inch
Subtracting:
L LC under Lp.
Ac - & = 2 -- S1 .- initial pin s t r e s s in pounds per square
ACE ACE inch under LI.
However, a s f a c e s do not separate, elongations
Then:
are equal. Therefore from equations (2) and (3):
Lp = SAP, and L1 = SIAp
and, substituting in equation (5):
The distance from the last full thread to the enables us to put more metal in the coupling and
shoulder on the API joint i s 0.550 in. T h i s i s not thus reduce the range of stress in the pin a s shown
all free to stretch, because of the imperfect threads; previously, a s well a s increasing the strength of
but for the purpose here, we shall assume it is. the coupling itself. It i s the writer's opinion that
T h i s same distance on the neck of the pin shown in this joint, together with a coupling with rounded
Fig. 10 i s 0.687 in. and in Fig. 11 i s 1.5 in. The thread roots, would go a long way toward eliminat-
respective elongations under the same tightening ing our present joint failures.
s t r e s s of 40,000 psi will then be: CONCLUSIONS
API: 0.00136 x 0.550 = 0.00075 in. 1. Proper and controlled tightening of the sucker-
Fig. 10: 0.00136 x 0.687 = 0.00093 in. rod joint is of paramount importance in the preven-
Fig. 11: 0.00136 x 1.500 = 0.00204 in. tion of broken pins. Some type of controlled torque
It i s conceivable that 0.00075-in. relaxation of wrenching should be used.
elongation could occur in seating of the API joint. 2. Tightening too little i s far more dangerous
If it did occur, the joint would loosen in service than tightening too much.
and fail very shortly in fatigue. The undercut joint 3. New s t r i n g s of rods should always be bucked
of Fig. 10 i s 25 percent better, but the long neck up twice when they are run for the first time.
of Fig. 11 i s 172 percent better. In the writer's 4. The s t r e s s in the pin in a properly tightened
opinion, the long-neck joint would always stay joint of a given outside diameter i s independent of
tight if properly tightened in the first place, for it pin size. Therefore, if coupling breakage or wear
i s inconceivable that plastic flow of the metal i s a factor, smaller pins for a given s i z e coupling
would absorb the 0.002 in. in seating under the outside diameter should give better service.
working load. The pin outside diameter h a s been 5. Hammering a hardened and ground coupling
reduced to 1lI8in. instead of the API 134, in., which willcrack the case and i s extremely likely to cause
--
force due to the variable friction of the joint, t h a t A Wilcox 35 360 2.00 21 x 52
*(590)
we have thought it b e s t to arbitrarily s e l e c t 40,000 B Simpson 20 400 2.00 26 x 52
p s i a s being sufficiently high to offset t h e unknown '(300)
variables, yet sufficiently below t h e yield point of C Wilcox 22 594 2.00 26 x 58
the tnetal to minimize danger in that direction. *(500)
A s hlr. O'Neal mentions, considerable experinlent- Sucker-rod Data: Maximum
Feet Stress
ing i s n e c e s s a r y to e s t a b l i s h t h e force which
Rlaximum Top of
should be used in tightening a joint, but until s u c h Well '1-in. %-in. ?/, -In. ' Pr Load, Lb %-in.~ o dP, s i
experimenting and far more field r e s e a r c h h a s been
A 1270 1499 1577 17,112 20,500
made, we believe that we should b e on the s a f e B ....... 1424 2652 15,872 26,400
s i d e by s e l e c t i n g a s t r e s s somewhere near t h e C ....... 1566 2527 16,500 27,400
magnitude of that previously mentioned.
*Water production at the t ~ m eprevlous sectional r e p l a c e m e n t
R o s s hl. Stuntz, Jr. (Gulf Oil Corp., T u l s a ) w a s made.
Incidentally, Mr. Hardy's s u g g e s t i o n s on field make- t i c a l goal then, logically, would be t o tighten t h e
up s e e m to be e x c e l l e n t a n d should b e tried out on joint sufficiently high to a s s u r e t h e highest pos-
a large s c a l e , particularly in t h o s e s e v e r a l a r e a s s i b l e margin of s a f e t y , offsetting s u c h unknowns a s
where joint failures are troublesome. a c t u a l maximum working load and variable tighten-
Mr. Hardy (written): Mr. Cooley h a s mentioned ing torque r e s u l t s as well as to b e certain that t h e
t h a t 40,000 p s i a s a n initial tightening s t r e s s i s a n yield point of t h e metal in t h e pin w a s not exceed-
incorrect assumption. A s w e mentioned in our reply ed. However, yield point i s a function of s t r e s s
t o Mr. OYNeal, t h i s s t r e s s is arbitrary. However, p e r s q u a r e inch a n d not l o a d in pounds. Therefore,
Mr. Cooley's assumption that t h e joint load s h o u l d we h a v e s e l e c t e d 40,000 p s i a s more nearly meet-
be twice t h e maximum working load on t h e r o d s i s ing t h i s practical goal rather than pounds load.
just a s arbitrary and, consequently, just as s u b j e c t Now with 40,000 p s i initial tightening effect in
t o being incorrect. I n s t e a d of substituting twice both of t h e joints under d i s c u s s i o n i t c a n be shown
t h e working load, o r 40,000 Ib, in Mr. Cooley's that, theoretically, t h e f a c e s of the maxiflow joint
formula for t h e proper tightening load we could j u s t would s e p a r a t e a t a rod load of 67,550 lb, w h e r e a s
as s a f e l y s u b s t i t u t e 1.01 t i m e s t h e working load, t h o s e of t h e slim-pin joint would d o s o a t a rbd
or 20,200 lb, if we know t h e maximum working load load of 43,000 lb. However, a 43,000-lb load g i v e s
would be 20,000 l b and we were certain that w e ample margin of s a f e t y over a n anticipated working
were generating t h e calculated joint l o a d by accu- load of 20,000 Ib. T o get t h e margin of 67,550 lb,
r a t e tightening. Likewise, w e would a l s o be s a f e w e must s a c r i f i c e coupling wall thickness. Cou-
if we u s e d a figure of s i x t i m e s t h e working load in pling w a l l s a r e s u b j e c t t o wear. Therefore, as
t h e formula if w e were certain t h a t we were not s t a t e d in conclusion 4: "If coupling breakage or
s t r e s s i n g t h e metal in t h e pin beyond i t s yield wear i s a factor, s m a l l e r p i n s for a given s i z e cou-
point when t h e maximum working load w a s applied. pling outside diameter should give t h e better serv-
Both of t h e s e examples a r e impractical. T h e prac- ice."