Sustainable Materials for Transitional and Alternative Energy - Chapter 1: Smart and state-of-the-art materials in oil and gas industry

Over the last few decades, increasing demand for gas and oil industries has compelled new design and enhanced drilling technologies that squeeze more from available energy sources and enable new energy resources. To address this challenge, smart and state-of-arts materials become promising alternative solid-state actuator for pneumatic, conventional hydraulic, and motor-based actuators due to their remarkable properties such as corrosion resistance, lightweight, superelasticity, and shape memory effect (SME). Furthermore, the demand for more effective chemicals will increase during the forecast period as companies meet the challenges of more extreme conditions, such as deep offshore deposits, that will alter the performance characteristics and effectiveness of chemicals required to work effectively in these environments. Many chemicals that are used today will be replaced with more multifunctional chemicals and processes that enable the reuse and recycle of material generated in more remote and isolated locations. In this chapter, smarts materials and state-of-art materials explained under two main sections. The additives and nanoparticles (NPs) are covered under the state-of-art materials section. This section will provide a better understanding of areas with growth potential as well as areas of additives and NPs. Moreover, piezoelectric and shape memory materials are employed in ultrasonic bore-hole imaging, sonic logging-while-drilling, precision pressure measurement and marine seismic survey, and explained under smart materials section. Smart and state-of-art materials find application in subsea pumps, self-torquing fasteners, reconfigurable seals, the underwater connectors, deep water valves and other adaptive components. Finally, detail information of the supramolecular assembly solutions is given in this chapter. This chapter will cover recent developments, challenges and application of shape memory materials in the energy, oil and gas industries.