High Pressure Grouting

adminThere are some fair tile and grout cleansers on the market. Be careful of using too much bleach. If your grout isnt white, the bleach will take the color out of it. Should go to the expense of having someone come out and professionally clean it and seal the grout. Then all you have to do is maintain it. Depending on usage, you shouldnt have to have this done again for a long time. The less abrasive the cleanser and the less amount of water can keep you tile cleaner longer. High pressure steam cleaner works well, just be sure to dry it well afterwards, since grout is very absorbent. Too much water can cause the tiles to loosen or break, and can cause further staining of the grout.

adminHigh Pressure Specialties
Specializing in High Pressure Cleaning
of all types of surfaces / Contcrete , Wood , Grout , Tile , Stone , Exc………Under Pressure
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adminAs a mechanical engineer, I used to do subsea wellhead design way back when Moby Dick was a minnow. Since I’ve been out of that business for a couple decades, some of what I tell you may have changed a bit over the years…The typical subsea wellhead has a 30-inch suspension joint drilled and grouted (cemented) into the ocean floor. From that semi-permanent structure, a square guide base is installed that has four cables that connect to the oilrig. The cables are used to run various pieces of equipment to the wellhead such as a blowout preventer stack. All drilling is performed through a 20-inch diameter casing that runs from the rig to the 30-inch suspension joint.

As the well is drilled deeper and deeper, the chances of hitting a high-pressure oil or gas formation increases. The blowout preventer stack is a redundant series of “valves” that prevent that high pressure “kick” from causing an out-of-control release of that high-pressure oil or gas.

When a kick first occurs, an “annular” preventer is activated to react the pressure from the kick. The annular preventer is like a balloon inflated around a pipe. It’s a quick, low-pressure solution for the kick. Also, high density “mud” is pumped down the casing to overcome the pressure of the kick and stablize the event.

If the high-pressure kick overwhelms the annular preventer and the mud is not stabilizing the well, a “ram” preventer is activated. The ram preventer is comprised of two thick, steel rams that close on the drill string from opposite sides. The ends of the ram preventer have a semi-circular cutout with an integrated stiff rubber gasket to seal around the drill string. The ram preventer can react thousands of pounds per square inch pressure, and its rare that a well will go out of control after this stop-gap is activated.

However, should neither the annular or ram preventers do the trick, the last line of defense is the “shear” preventer. It operates similarly to the ram preventers, but instead of rubber gaskets at the ends of the steel rams, they are sharpened and act like a gullotine cutter. The shear preventer indeed shears through the drill string and completely closes off the flow of oil or gas through the BOP stack.

Not knowing any of the details, I can only surmise that either the BOP stack failed (highly unlikely) or the kick caused the casing to blow out sideways at a point below the BOP stack. That’s a sucky situation because it’s so hard to fix.

There have been several large blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico, not to mention the world. More is given below…