Caterpillar Inc.

Joseph C Bufkin

Perry Dwain Converse

Casey Alan Otten

Todd R Kabrich

Andy Publes

Jason T Herlehy

Zhijun Cai

Baoyang Deng

Brandon J Mabe

Yanchai Zhang

Christopher G Y Haddad

Nausheen Ahmad

A method may include monitoring an operation or a state of one or more subsystems of a hydraulic fracturing system. The hydraulic fracturing system may include one or more fracturing rigs, one or more blending equipment, and one or more power sources electrically connected to a first subset of the one or more fracturing rigs, or one or more fuel sources fluidly connected to a second subset of the one or more fracturing rigs. The hydraulic fracturing system may further include one or more missile valves, one or more zipper piping and zipper valve sets, one or more well head valves, and one or more well heads. The method may further include controlling, based on monitoring the operation or the state, the one or more subsystems within operating limits or based on operating expectations to cause or prevent an occurrence of one or more well integrity-related events.

Controlling operations of a hydraulic fracturing system to cause or prevent an occurrence of one or more events

A method may include receiving information related to operation or a configuration of a hydraulic fracturing system. The hydraulic fracturing system may include a plurality of electric power source outputs and a plurality of hydraulic fracturing rigs. The method may further include performing, based on the information, asymmetric power management of the plurality of electric power source outputs. The method may further include performing, based on the information, asymmetric load management of the plurality of hydraulic fracturing rigs.

Asymmetric power management and load management

A method may include receiving power supply-related information, cost-related information, power demand-related information, and operational priority or site configuration-related information associated with hydraulic fracturing rigs. The hydraulic fracturing rigs may be each associated with a fuel consumption component or an emissions component. The method may further include receiving operational data and determining operational parameters based on the operational data and emissions output predictions for the hydraulic fracturing rigs. The method may further include outputting the operational parameters to a computing device or a controller. The method may further include, based on outputting the operational parameters, receiving operational feedback data and determining whether to modify the operational parameters. In addition, based on the outputting, the method may include determining whether to modify the operational data based on determining to not modify the set of operational parameters and modifying the operational data based on determining to modify the operational data.

Optimizing fuel consumption and emissions of a multi-rig hydraulic fracturing system

A method may include receiving information related to operation or a configuration of a hydraulic fracturing system, The hydraulic fracturing system may include one or more fracturing rigs, one or more blending equipment, and one or more power sources electrically connected to a first subset of the one or more fracturing rigs, or one or more fuel sources fluidly connected to a second subset of the one or more fracturing rigs. The hydraulic fracturing system may further include one or more missile valves, one or more zipper valves, one or more well head valves, and one or more well heads. The method may further include optimizing the operation of one or more subsystems of the hydraulic fracturing system using a particle swarm algorithm. The method may further include outputting one or more control signals to the one or more subsystems based on optimizing the operation.

Optimizing operations of a hydraulic fracturing system

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Spring, TX, United States of America

Joseph C Bufkin