Sucker Rod

[Purple Bullet]

Thanks for the clarification, Arkie. Where I was wrong was the annulus. That's a drilling term for the seal that seals the drill stem in the caisson. Mud holds the pressure down but the annulus seals off the hole to keep gas bubbles going to the flare rather than up on the drilling floor.

[Frosty]

We didn't do any oil field drilling or maintain pumps. However, "Annulus" was the space between the casing and drill rod and carries into other professions.

What the WIKI illustration calls the "Stuffing" box describes what we knew as "packing." Packing is common old school way to seal a moving shaft be it rotating or linear. Our Moyno pumps had packing glands between the worm and engine coupler. When it started to seep water under pressure you gave the bolts on the packing flange a SLIGHT turn to compress the packing more tightly against the shaft. Remember, keep both bolts even and 1/4 turn is a lot.

Packing used to be lead foil and the packing box had a grease zerk, ONE small squirt please!

Frosty The Lucky.

[arkie]

10 hours ago, Purple Bullet said:

Thanks for the clarification, Arkie. Where I was wrong was the annulus. That's a drilling term for the seal that seals the drill stem in the caisson. Mud holds the pressure down but the annulus seals off the hole to keep gas bubbles going to the flare rather than up on the drilling floor.

An "annulus" is not a seal.  Annulus is the space between any number of sections of tubular strings in the borehole.  It can be the space between the surface casing and the downhole casing string(s), it can be the space between a tubing string and casing, or it can be all the spaces between several casing strings and tubing.

You might have been thinking of packers or cement plugs.  Packers are temporary or permanent mechanical devices that seal off portions of tubular strings (such as tubing and casing) from others and prevent movement of fluids past desired parts of the borehole.  Cement plugs are permanent placements of cement to isolate portions of the borehole from the surface or other casing strings.

[JHCC]

“Annulus” is the technical term for the region between two concentric circles. It comes from the Latin “annulus” or “anulus”, meaning “little ring”. (In Latin, you make a diminutive by changing “-us” to “-ulus”.  Let the reader understand.)

[George N. M.]

Anything that is ring shaped is annular.  A doughnut is annular. A washer is annular.

A penannular brooch is "almost an annulus."  Pen- is almost as in penultimate (next to last) or peninsula (almost an island).  So, penannular is almost a ring or circle.

I have probably given that explanation thousands of times over the years explaining penannular brooches.  Not something that is in most folks vocabulary.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Frosty]

Your explanation is in mine now George. 

MAN I love IFI.

Frosty The Lucky.

[jrmysell]

This has been a great explanation stemming from me asking if they would work or not! I started to forge one end as a hardy but need to make some tongs to actually hold that big of stock. So that's my next project. Then to punches and a hardy and some bottom tools from it. 

[arkie]

My explanation of an annulus was in the context of the oil and gas industry.  The other explanations and definitions are very informative also, thanks guys for adding the info.

George, your explanations reminded me of my high school plane geometry class.  Our teacher bristled at the terms "almost round" or "almost square".  His take on it was that the object is either round or square, but the "almost" description was invalid.  Hard for a high school mind to wrap around that.....LOL

[George N. M.]

The two uses of "annulus" can be confusing because one use describes a solid such as a doughnut, ring, or washer while the other describes a void, the circular space between two round solids, one within the other.  Both are correct but it takes a bit of mental gymnastics to shift back and forth between something that is there physically and something that isn't there.

"Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there!
He wasn't there again today,
Oh how I wish he'd go away!"

-William Mearns-

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Frosty]

It's not really confusing if one stops worrying what's in the annulus. Annulus is the space between inner and outer circular boundaries. The term doesn't describe contents or size it describes a space and shape. 

For example a drawn circle is an annulus with an inner and outer boundary, no matter how thick the line. It has an inside and an outside, it's an annulus.

True I really enjoy an annulus filled with deep fried cake batter rolled in crumbs but there are others that are almost as good.

One of my least favorite is when one of the rubber annulus (annulii?) on a vehicle deAnnularFlates and I have to dig out the jack and lug wrench. <sigh> When you're changing a rubber annulus the lug nuts are NOT annuluses. 

Oh DRATS! the wise crack about lug nuts raised another question that's serious.

Does the term "annulus" apply to spheres?

Frosty The Lucky.

[bluerooster]

On 7/31/2021 at 10:43 AM, Purple Bullet said:

Sometimes local use takes on a certain meaning, but my understanding is that sucker rod is sucker rod, whether its pumping oil, water or mud. Polish rod OTOH is the last joint that goes through the annulus and attaches to the beam of the pump. That's what I seem to recall anyway.

Makes sense to me. I allways wondered why they would be using a mile of that stuff, when one joint would do. 

[George N. M.]

Frosty, I would call the space between 2 concentric spheres a 3 dimensional annulus.  I don't know if that is correct but that is what I would used until someone told me differently.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

PS I'm glad that you and Deb just got jiggled by the tremor.  I like the image of the two of you paddling your RV back to shore.

G.

[JHCC]

19 hours ago, Frosty said:

annulii?

That would be "annuli". You only get the double "i" if the root of the word ends in "i". For example, the plural of "radius" is "radii".

6 hours ago, George N. M. said:

Frosty, I would call the space between 2 concentric spheres a 3 dimensional annulus.  I don't know if that is correct but that is what I would used until someone told me differently.

The technical term is "spherical shell", defined as the region between two spheres of differing radii.

19 hours ago, George N. M. said:

The two uses of "annulus" can be confusing because one use describes a solid such as a doughnut, ring, or washer while the other describes a void, the circular space between two round solids, one within the other.

In mathematics, an annulus is a plane figure, not a three-dimensional one. The technical term for an annulus projected into three dimensions is a "cylindrical shell", and it can either be solid (like a washer or a tube) or void (like the space between a tube and a rod running down its axis). 

Strictly speaking, a doughnut is a torus, defined as a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three-dimensional space about an axis that is coplanar with that circle; in a doughnut's case, the axis does not intersect the circle. However, a cross-section of a doughnut would be annular.

[JHCC]

Just to confuse things even further, the growth rings in a tree trunk are referred to as "annular rings" because each one is visible as an annulus in the trunk's cross-section. However, since each one corresponds to a single growing season and since there is almost always only one growing season per year, they are often referred to as "annual rings".

[ThomasPowers]

Out here a lot of the fairly shallow water wells pumped by windmills had wooden sucker rods with steel ends riveted on with the screw joints.  The metal parts make nice langets to forge weld the "active" part of a pike or halberd onto.

[arkie]

I've learned a lot about annuli in this conversation, but what I learned most is that I never want to be in one with you guys! LOL 

[JHCC]

What did the bit say to the drill?

"If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be in this hole!"

[Purple Bullet]

Well I'm glad to have provided the stimulus for such an enlightening and amusing thread. I've heard that the first rule of holes is if you find yourself in one QUIT DIGGING! But where's the fun in that?

Like I've said before, I was in production, not drilling, but was naturally around drilling a lot. The part that I was wrongfully equating with the stuffing box was actually part of the blow out preventer stack. The BOP typically had multiple sections. The bottom was a ram that would shear off pipe and seal it. The middle was a ram that shoved a semicircular (almost circular may not exist but half circles do!) seal against the drill pipe from both sides. The top was a section that had to be able to allow different size tool joints through, but still seal between the drill pipe and casing (not caisson as I originally stated ) This was the annular section of the BOP.  Rather than say "annular sealing section of the blow out preventer" we just shortened to "annulus".  Packers were for downhole isolation.

I would say "sorry" for the misunderstanding, but I've enjoyed the education.   

 

 

[ThomasPowers]

John; I'm sure the bit had a cutting remark to say to the drill!

 

[Frazer]

Maybe, but it was a relief he sent a pilot down there first.

[JHCC]

I remember reading somewhere (maybe in The Next Whole Earth Catalog?) by someone who initially thought the term "pilot hole" was for out-of-the-way bars and pubs where weary off-duty airmen would go to escape the stresses of war.

[ThomasPowers]

"Access to Fools"?  I remember getting a copy of TLWEC for Christmas once; only my Grandfather was so interested in it we gave it to him and I got another copy for me.   

 

[JHCC]

Certainly one of the formative texts of my youth.

[Frosty]

So what's the problem calling growth rings annular rings, isn't one revolution around the sun, an Annulus? The root of the term Annual?

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

1 hour ago, ThomasPowers said:

TLWEC

Even Google doesn't know what that is so I don't feel so bad.