MATEC Web of Conferences 298, 00137 (2019) https://doi.org/10.

1051/matecconf/201929800137
ICMTMTE 2019

Diagnostics of the condition of sucker-rod

pumping units after the analysis of
dynamogram cards
Georgy Milovzorov1, Aleksei Ilyin2, * , and Pavel Shirobokov2
1Sarapul Polytechnic Institute, Kalashnikov Izhevsk State Technical University (branch), 427960,

Sarapul, Russia
2Kalashnikov Izhevsk State Technical University, 426069, Izhevsk, Russia

Abstract. Despite of the increased share of oil wells equipped with

submersible electrical centrifugal pumps, a considerable part of them is
equipped and operated with sucker-rod pumping units. When operating
wells with sucker-rod pumping units, different plunger pumps are used.
The rod string is operated in severe environment due to long contact with
highly corrosive well products and time-variant loads. Taking into account
all acting loads, the diagnostics of the condition of sucker-rod pumping
units is a difficult task. At the majority of oil fields in Russia, the operation
of wells equipped with sucker-rod pumping units is controlled by portable
and stationary dynamographs of various models. Moreover, dynamographs
are used, as a rule, only to obtain images of dependence of the force on the
polished piston rod upon its stroke. Based on dynamograms it is possible to
find the well flow rate, pump capacity, force on the polished piston rod,
etc. But one of the main problems to be solved with the help of
dynamometry is the forecasting of down-hole equipment condition in the
process of further operation. In this paper we overview the methods to
diagnose the condition of sucker-rod pumping units based on
dynamograms. The aim of the work is to develop the mathematical model
to forecast the failures of down-hole pumping equipment on the results of
dynamometry to automatize the control process of the unit operation. The
research tasks are to analyze the existing methods for diagnosing the
condition of sucker-rod pumping units, and to develop the mathematical
model for forecasting the failure of the valve unit leakage. As a result, the
method for forecasting the increased failure on the example of the fluid
leakage in the pump injection unit is proposed. The permissible boundaries
of the change in the relative force on the polished piston rod are drawn up.
As a result, the failure increase is forecasted based on the frequency of the
relative force on the polished piston rod getting within the interval
obtained.

*
Corresponding author: [email protected]

© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
MATEC Web of Conferences 298, 00137 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201929800137
ICMTMTE 2019

1 Introduction
The following factors are usually pointed out among those for increasing oil extraction
efficiency: application of rational systems for field development, improvement of drilling
technology, wide introduction of modern methods for increasing reservoir recovery,
application of advanced technological processes, as well as the extension of the interval
between repairs of well operation. One of the urgent tasks is diminishing the failures of
pumping equipment operation, the solution of which demands the development of modern
forecasting methods with their further implementation in information-measurement control
and management system of the pumping equipment operation being worked out.
Despite the increased share of oil wells equipped with submersible electrical centrifugal
pumps (ECP), a considerable part of them is equipped and operated with sucker-rod
pumping units (SRPU).
When operating wells with sucker-rod pumping units, different plunger pumps are used.
At present, a large variety of plunger pumps has been produced, different not only in design
but also in their application area under different operation conditions.
SRPU scheme is demonstrated in Figure 1. The equipment consists of two parts: surface
and down-hole.

Fig. 1. SRPU schematic diagram:

1 – control station; 2 – walking beam; 3 – walking beam head; 4 – walking beam post; 5 – rocker
arm; 6 – crank arm; 7 – gearbox; 8 – drive motor; 9 – brake; 10 – counterbalances; 11 – metal frame;
12 – concrete foundation; 13 – cable hanger; 14 – cross-beams; 15 – polished piston rod; 16 –
wellhead fittings; 17 – rod string; 18 – tubing string; 19 – pump plunger; 20 – injection valve; 21 –
suction valve; 22 – pump cylinder; 23 – linear
The pumping unit consisting of walking beam 2, walking beam head 3, walking beam post
4, rocker arm 5, crank arm 6, gearbox 7, drive motor 8, brake 9 and counterbalances 10 is
the main element of surface equipment. A special control station 1 controls the surface
equipment. The pumping unit, gearbox and drive motor are mounted on metal frame 11
fixed on concrete foundation 12. Walking beam head 3 has cable hanger 13 connected with
polished piston rod 15 with the help of cross-beams 14. The wellhead is equipped with
wellhead fittings 16. The pumping unit is designed to take up loads acting in the point of
rod hanging during the pumping cycle and transformation of the drive motor rotor rotary

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motion into the reciprocal motion of the walking beam head. Gearbox 7 is designed for
decreasing the number of revolutions of drive motor 8 and increasing the torque on the
output shaft, on which crank arms 6 are fixed.
The down-hole equipment comprises rod string 17 designed for transforming the
reciprocal motion of the walking beam head to pump plunger 19, as well as for taking up
the loads acting upon the rods during the pumping cycle. There is tubing string 18, on the
bottom part of which pump cylinder 22 is fixed. The pump plunger has two injection valves
20, and the pump cylinder – suction valve 21. Linear 23 is fixed to the pump suction.
As seen in Figure 1, when the walking beam head moves upwards, the plunger also goes
upwards; at the same time, injection valve 20 closes under the action of the well products
weight being in the tubing.
When the pressure in the pump cylinder goes down to the value smaller than the intake
pressure (pressure in the well before the suction valve), suction valve 21 opens and the
pump cylinder is filled with the well products (suction stroke). When the plunger moves
downwards, the pressure in the cylinder goes up, the suction valve closes, and when the
pressure in the pump cylinder (under the plunger) becomes higher than the pressure under
the plunger, the injection valve opens and the products flow from the cylinder to the tubing
string through the plunger (injection stroke). Then the cycle repeats [1].
It should be pointed out that the rod string is operated in harsh environment mainly not
due to the extensive contact with the well products (they can be corrosive) but due to
complicated and time-variable loads (tensile, compression, bending and torsional).
SRPU condition diagnostics, taking into account all acting loads, is a complicated
physical task.
At the majority of oil fields in Russia the operation of wells equipped with SRPU is
controlled by portable and stationary dynamographs of various models. Moreover,
dynamographs are used, as a rule, only to obtain images of dependence of the force on the
polished piston rod upon its stroke.
The range of tasks, for which dynamograms are used, is quite extensive: finding the
well flow rate, down-hole pump capacity, force on the polished piston rod, etc. But one of
the main problems to be solved with the help of dynamometry is the forecasting of down-
hole equipment condition in the process of further operation.
Thus, for more effective well operation and less failures in SRPU operation it is
necessary to develop the technique for forecasting the down-hole equipment operation
condition.
To solve this problem it is planned to work out the mathematical model for determining
the dynamogram calculation parameters on the example of one type of failure for further
use in the developed operation algorithm of information-measuring system (IMS) for
automatic diagnostics and forecasting of SRPU failures.
The online processing of the dynamogram parameters and characteristics followed up
by the online decision-making on the diagnostics results is one of the methods of effective
control of SRPU operation.
The dynamogram allows revealing qualitative indexes of the deep-well pumping unit
operation: passes through the injection and suction valves, gas influence, low and high
plunger fit, plunger sticking, fluid leakage from pipes, etc. [2].

2 Techniques for SRPU condition diagnostics

The techniques for failure diagnostics can be divided into two classes [2 – 14]:
1) pattern recognition of practical dynamograms based on comparison with the
reference;

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2) failure determination based on physical laws of obtaining the dynamogram of the

pump abnormal operation.
The techniques of the second class do not allow, based on the failure features, providing
the mathematical description. Therefore, it is difficult to use them in the algorithm of IMS
operation.
The techniques of the first class comprise:
• matrix representation of the practical dynamogram;
• determination of the features of Fourier series from the practical dynamogram (Aliev-
Ter-Khachaturov technique);
• analysis of the deviation of practical dynamogram from the reference one (Grid
Pattern technique);
• extraction of the relevant points on the practical dynamogram (Belov-Gilaev
technique).
Nevertheless, along with the existing ones, the new forecasting techniques are based on
a more detailed mathematical description of the forms of dynamograms with their further
discrete transformation.
Modern investigations of foreign scientists in the field of SRPU diagnostics with the
help of dynamograms are connected with the curve discrete transformation to reveal the
shapes of dynamograms with their further processing. These can be the algorithms of
position-binary identification of failures of deep-well pumping units or the algorithms of
sparse multi-graph regularized extreme learning method (SMELM) applied as the failure
classifier [15, 16].
These techniques, to various extents, solve the problems set up. But the following
method for diagnosing SRPU operation condition is of certain interest.
The technique is proposed, in accordance with which the curves of upper and lower
boundaries of relative force on the piston rod at some failure are plotted. The mathematical
model for evaluating the failure increase for the most frequent cases of deviations in the
deep-well equipment operation forms the basis of this method.
As an example, let us consider the forecasting of SRPU failure for the situation of fluid
leakage in the pump injection unit.
The dynamograms of pump operation with fluid leakage in the injection unit (Figure 2)
have the following characteristic geometry [2]:

Fig. 2. Practical dynamogram of pump operation at fluid leakage in the injection unit

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• load bearing is described by the inclined curve different from the load bearing line
during the normal pump operation by a smaller inclination angle;
• right upper angle of the dynamogram is rounded; the more is the leakage value, the
more is the curvature radius of this rounding.
One of the reasons of such failure can be the increased content of heavy oil sediments
(HOS), under which high-molecular compounds are understood (resins, asphaltenes, etc.)
containing hydrocarbon, hydrogen, sulfur, nitrogen, and which possess high surface activity
and complicate oil filtration in reservoirs [17].
The interval evaluation of the dynamogram characteristics is proposed based on the
mathematical model of failure forecast.
Under the interval evaluation we understand the assessment, which is defined by two
numbers – interval ends. With its help we can determine the accuracy and reliability of
evaluations [18].
The essence of the interval evaluation is as follows. Let the statistic characteristic of
dynamograms Θ* found based on sampling method data serve as the assessment of the
unknown parameter Θ. Obviously, the more accurately the found characteristic Θ* defines
parameter Θ, the less is the absolute value of the difference |Θ – Θ*|. In other words, if δ>0
and the following inequality is accomplished
| Θ – Θ* | < δ (1)
then the less is δ, the more accurate is the assessment. Thus, the positive number δ
characterizes the evaluation accuracy.
However, statistic methods do not allow asseverating that assessment Θ* satisfies the
inequality (1). We can only speak about probability γ, with which this inequality is
accomplished. Then, probability γ is called the reliability (confidence probability) of the
evaluation of Θ by Θ*, with which the inequality (1) is accomplished.
The definition of the confidence interval (2):
xв − tγ ⋅ S xв + tγ ⋅ S
<x< (2)
n n

where xв =
∑ ni xi – average sampling, S =
∑ ni (x − xв )2 – mean square
n n −1
deviation of the corrected sampling dispersion, t γ – tabular value of Student’s coefficient, n
– sampling volume.
In Figure 3 the confidence interval for the case of fluid leakage in the injection unit
during the SRPU plunger upwards motion and graphs of relative forces on the polished
piston rod are given on the example of three wells with unpressurized injection units.

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Fig. 3. The boundaries of confidence interval during the fluid leakage in the injection unit
As seen from this Figure, the graphs of relative forces of the wells are located between the
upper and lower boundaries of the interval calculated. Consequently, if all the points of the
relative force curve are within the specified interval, then, as follows from the analysis, this
case is the failure.

3 Research results and their discussion

The changes in shapes of practical dynamograms of the equipment operation of one and the
same well in different time periods are given as an example (Figure 4). At the normal
operation of the deep-well pumping equipment, the following characteristic features
described in [2] are appropriate for the dynamogram (Figure 4a):
- load bearing and relieving lines can be averaged by right lines;
- left lower and right upper angles are acute;
- inclination angles of load bearing and relieving lines equal the corresponding angles of
theoretical dynamograms;
- load bearing line is parallel to the load relieving line.
For the pre-failure situation (Figure 4b) the inclination angles of the bearing and
relieving lines of the practical dynamogram significantly differ from the lines of the
simplest theoretical dynamogram. Besides, the right upper angle of the practical
dynamogram is obtuse, thus, indicating the leakage in the pump injection unit.
The third dynamogram (Figure 4c) has smoothed curves of the practical dynamogram
without vivid oscillations. The inclination angles of the bearing and relieving lines are not
acute and significantly differ from the corresponding angles of the theoretical dynamogram.
The dynamograms of such shape are characteristic for the case of fluid leakage in the
injection unit. The more is the leakage, the more is the rounding radius of the right upper
angle.
In Figure 4d the dynamogram of this well after the overhaul is demonstrated. The curve
of the practical dynamogram has the main features appropriate for the dynamogram during
the normal operation of the deep-well pumping unit listed in the case for Figure 4a.

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a) dynamogram of normal operation b) pre-failure situation

c) fluid leakage in the injection unit d) dynamogram after the well overhaul
Fig. 4. Typical dynamograms of SRPU operation
The graphs of relative forces on the polished piston rod during the plunger upward
motion in SRPU have been plotted for these dynamograms (Figure 5); from the graphs it is
seen that the more curve points get within the confidence interval, the more the equipment
failure possibility increases. For comparison: during the normal operation of the pumping
unit five points are outside the interval, and under the pre-failure condition – only two
points. Thus, the failure increase can be forecasted.

Fig. 5. To the boundaries of the confidence interval during the fluid leakage in the injection unit
Thus, the technique for SRPU condition diagnostics has been proposed. In accordance
with this technique it is necessary to determine the upper and lower boundaries of the force
on the piston rod under some failure. Since the calculated characteristics of dynamograms
are processed, this allows diagnosing the deep-well pumping equipment condition based on
the formal features of the dynamograms using numerical values.
The research results, when integrated with electrotechnical system [19], allow
optimizing the pumping equipment operation to extend the deep-well pump service life and
increasing the oil recovery factor of the productive reservoir.

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4 Conclusions
The existing techniques of SRPU failures diagnostics by domestic and foreign researchers
have been analyzed. The mathematical model to forecast SRPU failures has been
developed. The permissible boundaries of the change in the relative force on the polished
piston rod have been plotted. As a result, the failure increase is forecasted based on the
frequency of the relative force on the polished piston rod getting within the interval
obtained. The modeling results allow algorthming the process of forecasting the failures
increase of the deep-well pumping equipment, which makes it possible to be applied in the
automation process of SRPU operation control.

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