As a few of you may know, my job is as a Chief Mechanic on seismic survey vessels. What we do is map geological formations for oil companies, to increase their probability of drilling in the right spot. Today I have been overhauling some 3 way high pressure ball valves, for our "shooting air" manifold. The pressure is normally 2000 or 2500 psi, so leaks are not very desirable. I don't remember the cfm of our 3 compressors, but the drive motors for them is close to 1000 hp each, so they are quite big. Normally we run just two of them when shooting.
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A brief report from the other end of the internal combustion supply chain.
- Thread starter arcticXS
- Start date
What's the high pressure air used for?
The air guns creating the sonic boom. Google Teledyne Bolt, a US company. We mostly use the Bolt 1900 LLXT guns with volume capacities ranging from 20 to 250 cubic inches each. A number of guns make up a source where all guns fire simultaneously, within+- 1 millisecond. Every shot up to 5000 cubic inches of 2000 or 2500 psi air is released almost instantaneously , creating a strong signal. Like an echosounder on speed AND steroids. In older times they used Dynamite....
There are some videos on YouTube describing what we do. Try searching for PGS+seismic+Ramform.