Black Mamba - For Wear

Erodible Wear Volume (EWV)

EWV is a metric which was created by legacy sucker rod guide manufacturers, defined as the volume of plastic able to be consumed prior to coupling-on-tubing contact (the plastic volume OUTSIDE of the coupling diameter). The rendering to the left visualizes this metric.

EWV is only truly comparable when similar materials are applied to the sucker rod guide designs in question, as the volume of erodible plastic and the rate at which is erodes away both play into overall sucker rod guide, stabilizer, or centralizer product life.

Legacy Thermoset - Short: ~3.5 cu. in.

Legacy Thermoset - Long: ~5.4 cu. in.

Black Mamba: 9 cu. in.

The Black Mamba Helical Stabilizer features up to 250% more EWV than other thermoset rod guides in the marketplace.

Material Selection

Ask any plastics guru about down-hole applications, and in particular, sucker rod guides: heat, pressure, time, immersion service, chemical exposure, compressive stress and strength. With any one of these, and especially with all combined, thermoset materials win, always. Thermoset resins combined with new manufacturing innovation and derivative manufacturing processes allow for a variety of thermoset materials to be processed for the manufacturing of sucker rod stabilizers and guides.

Our material selection was curated to address a variety of needs with operators. Whether your operation is driven on transparency, product integrity, price, temperature performance, wear life, or low-risk integration, Black Mamba Rod Lift has the right product for you.

PPS-TS

PPS-TS provides good wear resistance up to 250 F, outlasting PPA hands down and with similar strengths and DMTA curves to current PPS market offerings.

PPS-TS is our economic price option.

Our PPS-TS material is market proven and has been in use down-hole for 50+ years.

PPS-TSX

Our "X" modified PPS-TS product features enhanced strength, hardness, and wear resistance, yet maintains impact and elongation performance.

PPS-TSX is Black Mamba's mid-tier material, expected to dominate the industry. Our product design and this new, modified resin and filler system provide product value and performance never before seen in industry from traditional sucker rod guides.

PPS-TSX is market proven, and has been in use down-hole for 50+ years. Temperature limitation is increased to 300 F, with confidence.

Performance plastics for uses in sucker rod guides out-gas various elements or compositions when processed, as part of semi-crystalline cross-linking or thermoset curing. For instance, thermoplastic PPS emits sulfur - corrosive to sucker rod when mixed with water.

¹Standard novolac resin(s) with traditional HMTA (hexa) curing agent emits excessive ammonia, which has been known to cause accelerated corrosion and rod parts.

ASM Handbook 13C features article "Corrosion by Ammonia" which details the negative side effects of ammonia exposure on engineered steel components, and directly addresses stressed steel components similar to sucker rods.

Product Wear Life

AF Legacy

PPS Legacy

Thermoset Legacy

Black Mamba PPS-TS

Black Mamba PPS-TSX

Product Temperature Rating

AF - PPA

Black Mamba PPS-TS

Black Mamba PPS-TSX

PPS

Material Science

Thermoplastics are melt-processable (made to soften in heat); they soften when in put in service at down-hole temperatures, losing upwards of 70% in strength, modulus and hardness, all combining factors in wear resistance.

In recent discussions with a leading thermoplastic supplier for sucker rod guides, they too cannot dispute the superiority of thermoset materials for the down-hole environment, though they’re thankful for the truckloads of thermoplastic materials they sell into misapplication.

PPS-TS is a unique modified resin which follows the performance of thermoplastic PPS nearly identically, and is and has been proven in applications throughout production systems and oil and gas for decades.

PPS-TSX is a further enhanced plastic resin, bridging the gap between PPS-TS and PF-MAX.

PF-MAX is practically stable across all temperatures in strength and wear-resistance due to its tight molecular structure.

Bearing Surface Area

Bearing Surface Area calculations are critical when computing expected stabilizer or sucker rod guide life. This surface area is dynamic; as the product wears, the surface area in contact with the tubing changes. This is unique to each and every guide design.

Compressive Loads (Side-Load) is applied to the guide between the rod and tubing. Predictive rod string design software calculates this based on the axial rod load at the location being evaluated, and deviation or dog-leg severity.

The Compressive Stress the sucker rod protection device encounters is directly related to fin Bearing Surface Area (Dynamic) and the Side Load (fixed). Compressive stress and further, the compressive stress relative to the compressive strength of the material, is an indisputable driver of polymer wear rates. This algorithmic approach and engineering calculation is commonly utilized in Reliability Engineering.

The Black Mamba features upwards of 2.5x the bearing surface area of legacy sucker rod guide products. This undoubtedly reduces product wear rates and increases product life.

Sucker Rod Guides & Friction

Long misunderstood in rod lift - friction and drag loads have nothing to do with bearing surface area of sucker rod guides, centralizers, or stabilizers in contact with the tubing. In fact, the idea that an increase in surface area creates more drag on fixed, known, and consistent side-loads actually goes against the laws of physics.

The formulaic expression for Drag Load in Rod String Design is strictly held to the Coefficient of Friction selected for Sucker Rods & Sucker Rod Guides, and the Side-Load at that area.

Note: Predictive software has a default guide friction value of 0.3. This has been disputed many times across industry and in third party lab testing. Guides-on-tubing (~0.1 - ASTM Testing of Rod Guide Materials in Water and Oil) cause less friction than rods-on-tubing (~0.2 - ASTM Testing of Sucker Rod on Steel). Tubing Liner Manufacturers and sales reps often tout reduced friction when the steel sucker rod string reciprocates and slides along the stationary plastic internal tubing liner. The inverse also holds true - plastic sucker rod guides, stabilizers, or centralizers attached to the sucker rod string and reciprocating and sliding along the static steel tubing, is the exact same scenario. A CoF of ~0.3 is accurate when studying the behavior of steel reciprocation on plastic in a dry state. Sucker rod strings are in immersion service.

Friction calculations are NOT surface area dependent!

sq. in. v. 0% Worn, 50% Worn, 100% Worn
Larger Bearing Surface Area is preferred for wear life. Bearing surface area has zero effect on friction.

Relative Flow Area

Black Mamba has achieved the near impossible by providing unmatched rod protection while achieving less flow restriction than a 3/4″ coupling.

The Black Mamba Helical Sucker Rod Stabilizer

3/4" Full Size Sucker Rod Coupling

4-Fin Legacy Sucker Rod Guide (Average)

Flow

A singular fin design allows for upwards of 4x the fluid flow area in comparison to legacy sucker rod products.
Fluid drag, pressure drop, and turbulence behind the a guide is a non-issue.

Rod Bonding

Black Mamba has put more science to sucker rod guide-to-bar adhesion than anyone else in industry.

Our investment into scientifically identifying the relationships associated with the molding parameters, plastic wrap-around wall-thickness, length, material shrinkage, Tg, and modulus has paid off – cracking the code to previously slipped sucker rod guides.

Thermosets, just like thermoplastics, shrink around the sucker rod as normal. The rate and behavior of shrinkage, and thermal expansion, is directly related to inherent composition properties such as:

Base Resin
Filler Content, Type, Orientation
Molding Conditions

Raw material manufacturers provide molding guidelines; they should be adhered to. That, mixed with our team’s extensive experience in the sucker rod guide and rod lift industry, put us on the forefront of understanding and manufacturing sucker rod products.