Jyothi Swaroop Samayamantula, Ellis Manufacturing Co.
Standing and Traveling valves can be considered as the heart of a rod pump. An unrestricted fluid flow through the standing and traveling valves improve the pump efficiency and pump life. An unrestrained fluid flow through the traveling valve helps the sucker rod string to fall freely, which reduces rod buckling and eliminates unnecessary load on the surface unit. And in the case of the standing valve, it reduces the velocity and pressure drop across the cage, which lessens the gas lock in a pump. Standing valves with the least unused volume provide the highest compression ratio, that is helpful in a gassy environment. Zero restriction flow through the cages provides a free flow for the wellbore fluids with solid particles and keeps the cages from blockage.
The important factors that need to be considered while selecting standing and traveling valves are: 1) Compression ratio, 2) Pressure drop, 3) Ball rattle and 4) Zero restriction flow, which will be discussed in this paper.
The research team at Ellis Manufacturing has studied these factors along with different patterns of flow and engineered the patented Ellis JMAX 1-Piece Insert Cages. This paper discusses how the carefully engineered JMAX cages address all four important factors to provide improved pump efficiency for pumping in both conventional and horizontal wellbores.