Increasing the fatigue strength of threaded joints of oil and gas equipment by plastic deformation of the thread under high load before make-up

Abstract

Abstract Uneven distribution of stresses in the thread can cause fatigue failure of the joint, usually in the area of the first roots of the thread. This problem is very relevant for shouldered threaded joints of oil and gas equipment, which operate under conditions of significant cyclic loads. One of the ways to equalize the stresses in the thread is plastic deformation of the thread with a high load before make-up. The influence of various methods of such pre-deformation of the tool joint of drill pipes and the connection of sucker rods on the fatigue life in the thread roots of the pin and box has been studied. A method for optimizing the load for pre-deformation was proposed and it was found that the optimal load can increase the fatigue life by 5 times. The study was carried out by finite element analysis of the axisymmetric model in Abaqus/CAE and calculation of the fatigue life from the Brown-Miller dependence using fe-safe.