Operating Characteristics and Equipment Risk Points

The high-pressure manifold works under extremely harsh conditions and has several notable characteristics:

1. Alternating Pressure Fatigue Loads: The drilling pump is a reciprocating pump; its output pressure is not constant. Continuous periodic pulsations impact the manifold, subjecting the line to long-term alternating stress, and long-term operation can easily cause fatigue cracks in welds and connections.

2. Solid Particle Erosion and Wear: The drilling fluid contains hard cuttings and barite particles that scour the inner wall of the line at high speed. At elbows and tees, where the flow direction changes, scouring is most severe; prolonged use can thin the pipe wall and cause washouts.

3. Severe Vibration and Impact: Pressure pulsation can trigger violent pipeline vibration. If the fixing and damping measures fail, the unions and flange connections may loosen, causing mud washouts.

4. High Safety Risk: The fluid inside the line is under high pressure of tens of MPa. Once a fitting cracks or a connection is blown open, high-pressure mud spraying can easily cause personal injury, making the manifold a key high-hazard equipment item under focused management on drilling sites.

Common faults: union (hammer union) washouts, erosion-induced wall thinning of elbow inner walls, weld cracking, internal leakage of valves, damaged connection seals, and loosened support brackets.

Features

• Adopted high strength alloy steel/carbon steel appropriate to specific pressure rating, strict heat treatment technique, rigid quality control as per APl Spec 16C ;
• Equivalent to FMC WECO style Hammer Union with identical size to ensure easy replacement;
• APl Standard LP/NPT, Tubing threaded, and butt-weld end connection available;
• Complete line of standard service and sour gas wing unions in size from 1"-12" with working pressure up to 20000psi, Sour service conform to NACE specification;
• Quality and full style of hammer union seals can be provided in Buna-N, Viton, and Buna-N/Viton with a brass ring, Buna-N/Viton with a stainless steel ring, and Teflon. There are 80 Nitrile, 80 Viton, 90 Viton or upon request.
• The same figure number, size, and pressure rating are interchangeable, making it easy to match male and female subs that are frequently made-up and broken-out.