Techniques for Modelling Elastomers Used in Flow Equipment

In the oil extraction industry, elastomer components play a key role in various sealing applications. These can be very large structures such as the packer unit of annular blowout preventer to more generic O-ring seals. As the industry turns towards extraction under more extreme environments, these components have to be modified to cope with increasing demands imposed. Currently the development process of these components is based on an iterative prototype build design process, resulting in multiple development steps that are tested full scale to identify the optimum solution. A more efficient approach would be to adopt simulation methods, however these are very highly strained components and this has proven difficult in the past. In this work techniques for modelling the sealing process in a blowout preventer and rapid gas decompression in more complex seals are explored using a commercial FEA package.