An Innovative Simulated Experimental System for Evaluating PCP Elastomer's Dynamic Fatigue Properties

Abstract Elastomer is the core component of progressing cavity pump (PCP) which influences the running life of PCP considerably. Conventional elastomer performance tests only show basic mechanical and physical properties mainly simulate the static mechanic performance of elastomer. Numerical simulation indicates that dynamic performance is much more valuable in evaluating PCP's running life, while elastomer's dynamic test has not common criteria in the industry, especially for dynamic fatigue property test. This paper presents a novel simulated experimental design which could effectively evaluate dynamic fatigue properties of PCP elastomer. Based on the operating conditions of PCP lifting system, a special experiment system has been designed and tested. It consists of power transmission system, friction pair system, and temperature control system. After implementing a series of contrasted tests, a special structure of elastomer sample and testing process were designed which showed best performance in accelerating dynamic fatigue process of elastomer as well as to simplify simulated test principle. In order to verify the evaluation result of this fatigue testing system, three candidate elastomer formula (sample A, B, C) were evaluated. Experiments showed that dynamic fatigue properties of sample C were better than A and B. The fatigue properties of sample A was the worst. Statistics indicated that average running life of elastomer A was about 550 days, while running life of Elastomer B was 590 days and Elastomer C was 670 days. The application results had the same principle with experimental results. Experiments indicated that this simulated experimental system could describe the dynamic fatigue performance directly and clearly. This paper presented a new experimental design which could evaluate the dynamic fatigue properties of PCP elasomer based on simulating PCP's operating conditions in practice. This experimental system has been applied to guide the design of elastomer formula and showed good results. This experimental system and testing process are of great significance in evaluating PCP elastomer's performance and developing high performance PCP elastomer in various operating conditions.