Top drive

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A top drive is a mechanical device on a drilling rig that provides clockwise torque to
the drill string to drill a borehole. It is an alternative to the rotary table and kelly drive. It is
located at the swivel's place below the traveling block and moves vertically up and down
the derrick.
The top drive allows the drilling rig to drill the longer section of a stand of drill pipe in one
operation. A rotary table type rig can only drill 30-foot (9.1 m) (single drill pipe) sections of
drill pipe whereas a top drive can drill 60–90-foot (18–27 m) stands (double and triple drill
pipe respectively, a triple being three joints of drillpipe screwed together), depending on the
drilling rig size. Handling longer sections of drill pipe enables a drilling rig to make greater
daily progress because up to 90-foot (27 m) can be drilled at a time, thus requiring fewer
"connections" to add another 30-foot (9.1 m) of drill pipe. Another advantage of top drive
systems is time efficiency. When the bit progresses under a kelly drive, the entire string
must be withdrawn from the well bore for the length of the kelly in order to add one more
length of drill pipe. With a top drive, the draw works only has to pick up a new stand from
the rack and make up two joints. Making fewer and quicker connections reduces the risk of
a stuck string from annulus clogging while drilling fluid is not being pumped.
Several different kinds of top drives exist, and are usually classified based on the "Safe
Working Load" (SWL) of the equipment and the size and type of motor used to rotate the
drillpipe. For offshore and heavy duty use, a 1000 short ton unit would be used, whereas a
smaller land rig may only require a 500 short ton device. Various sizes of hydraulic motors,
or AC or DC electric motors, are available.

References[edit]
 Schlumberger Oilfield Glossary
 Tesco Top Drives
 Canrig Drilling Technology
 LeTourneau Technologies (now Cameron)
 National Oilwell Varco
 Warrior Rig
 GDS International
This article related to natural gas, petroleum or the petroleum industry is a stub. You can
help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Categories:
 Petroleum stubs
 Oilfield terminology
 Drilling technology
 Petroleum engineering
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 This page was last edited on 14 December 2016, at 19:29 (UTC).