Composite sucker rods are widely used in oil fields because of light weight,high strength,and corrosion resistance.Bonded technology becomes the primary connection method of composites.However,the joints with composit...Composite sucker rods are widely used in oil fields because of light weight,high strength,and corrosion resistance.Bonded technology becomes the primary connection method of composites.However,the joints with composite sucker rods are prone to debone and fracture.The connected characteristics are less considered,so the failure mechanism of the joint is still unclear.Based on the cohesive zone model(CZM)and the Johnson-Cook constitutive model,a novel full-scale numerical model of the joint with composite sucker rod was established,and verified by pull-out experiments.The mechanical properties and slip characteristics of the joint were studied,and the damaged procession of the joint was explored.The results showed that:a)the numerical model was in good agreement with the experimental results,and the error is within 5%;b)the von Mises stress,shear stress,and interface stress distributed symmetrically along the circumferential path increased gradually from the fixed end to the loading end;c)the first-bonded interface near the loading end was damaged at first,followed by debonding of the second-bonded interface,leading to the complete shear fracture of the epoxy,and resulted in the debonding of the joint with composite sucker rod,which can provide a theoretical basis for the structural design and optimization of the joint.展开更多
An exact forecast of the failures of a sucker rod-pumped well in a production area means much for an oilfield’s operation budget, operational arrangement and production plan. In this paper, according to the characte...An exact forecast of the failures of a sucker rod-pumped well in a production area means much for an oilfield’s operation budget, operational arrangement and production plan. In this paper, according to the characteristics of failed sucker rod-pumped well randomness and strong outburst, with the gray GM (1,1) forecast model and the Markov forecast model combined, gray GM (1,1) forecast model is utilized to handle the primary data of an oilfield, and Markov forecast model is utilized to calculate the state transfer probability of forecast value. Then, the gray Markov forecast model considering the influence of randomness factors is formed. Field results prove that the calculation precision of this method is higher and the practicability is greater.展开更多
A highly precise and timely diagnosis technology can help effectively monitor and adjust the sucker rod production system(SRPS)used in oil wells to ensure a safe and efficient production.The current diagnosis method i...A highly precise and timely diagnosis technology can help effectively monitor and adjust the sucker rod production system(SRPS)used in oil wells to ensure a safe and efficient production.The current diagnosis method is pattern recognition of a dynamometer card(DC)based on feature extraction and perceptron.The premise of this method is that the training and target data have the same distribution.However,the training data are collected from a field SRPS with different system parameters designed to adapt to production conditions,which may significantly affect the diagnostic accuracy.To address this issue,in this study,an improved model of the sucker rod string(SRS)is derived by adding faultparameter dimensions,with which DCs under 16 working conditions could be generated.Subsequently an adaptive diagnosis method is proposed by taking simulated DCs generated near the working point of the target SRPS as training data.Meanwhile,to further improve the accuracy of the proposed method,the DC features are improved by relative normalization and using additional features of the DC position to increase the distance between different types of samples.The parameters of the perceptron are optimized to promote its discriminability.Finally,the accuracy and real-time performance of the proposed adaptive diagnosis method are validated using field data.展开更多
Downhole working conditions of sucker rod pumping wells are automatically identified on a computer from the analysis of dynamometer cards. In this process, extraction of feature parameters and pattern classification a...Downhole working conditions of sucker rod pumping wells are automatically identified on a computer from the analysis of dynamometer cards. In this process, extraction of feature parameters and pattern classification are two key steps. The dynamometer card is firstly divided into four parts which include different production information according to the "four point method" used in actual oilfield production, and then the moment invariants for pattern recognition are extracted. An improved support vector machine (SVM) method is used for pattern classification whose error penalty parameter C and kernel function parameter g are optimally chosen by the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. The simulation results show the method proposed in this paper has good classification results.展开更多
Dynamometer cards are commonly used to analyze down-hole working conditions of pumping systems in actual oil production. Nowadays, the traditional supervised learning methods heavily rely on the classification accurac...Dynamometer cards are commonly used to analyze down-hole working conditions of pumping systems in actual oil production. Nowadays, the traditional supervised learning methods heavily rely on the classification accuracy of the training samples. In order to reduce the errors of manual classification, an automatic clustering algorithm is proposed and applied to diagnose down-hole conditions of pumping systems. The spectral clustering (SC) is a new clustering algorithm, which is suitable for any data distribution. However, it is sensitive to initial cluster centers and scale parameters, and needs to predefine the cluster number. In order to overcome these shortcom- ings, we propose an automatic clustering algorithm, fast black hole-spectral clustering (FBH-SC). The FBH algo- rithm is used to replace the K-mean method in SC, and a CritC index function is used as the target function to automatically choose the best scale parameter and clus- tering number in the clustering process. Different simulation experiments were designed to define the relationship among scale parameter, clustering number, CritC index value, and clustering accuracy. Finally, an example is given to validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.展开更多
The existing design of the pumping systems mainly focuses on the approximate computational formulae and procedures,which are developed based on the analytic approaches of conventional oil/gas fields.The calculation of...The existing design of the pumping systems mainly focuses on the approximate computational formulae and procedures,which are developed based on the analytic approaches of conventional oil/gas fields.The calculation of polished rod loads usually just concerns about the static and inertial loads.And the computation of gearbox torque generally uses empirical formulae and correction factors.The above modeling procedures,if applied to the coalbed methane(CBM) wells,can not give the desired accuracy of the system design and its pertinent analysis.In this paper,based on the kinematic and dynamic analysis of the pumping system,the kinematic relation of polished rod is analyzed,and the variation of the total loads of polished rod is developed with the limits of CBM well conditions along the string.The gearbox torque calculation model is established by combining the counterbalance effect with the calculated dynamometer cards and torque factors.The application characteristics of this model are demonstrated by the example of ZH002-4 well in Qinshui basin.The interpretations of results show that the cranks of beam units should rotate in a counter clockwise direction viewed with the wellhead to the right.Compared with oil?gas fields,the dynamic and friction to polished rod load ratios are relatively high and the computation of polished rod loads should involve the static and inertial loads,as well as vibration and friction loads.And the dynamic load ratio decreases rapidly during the production.Besides,the total deformation of the string is small in CBM wells.As for balanced operation,the gearbox torque load usually has two approximately equal peaks and the magnitudes of instantaneous torque are just within 50% of unbalanced gearbox loadings.The proposed research improves efficiency of the pumping system,loads the pumping unit more uniformly,and provides the reasonable basis for selecting the units.展开更多
Inuestigated wear tests of grade D sucker rod and N80 tubing with a produced liquid are the effect of the water cut of produced liquid on the wear rate and the wear coefficient of the friction pair. And presented here...Inuestigated wear tests of grade D sucker rod and N80 tubing with a produced liquid are the effect of the water cut of produced liquid on the wear rate and the wear coefficient of the friction pair. And presented here is a comparison of tribological performance of tubing/sucker rod with sprayed tubing/sucker rod and tubing/sprayed sucker rod. The results show that one of the main reasons for wear failure between the sucker rod and the tubing is a high water cut of the produced liquid. The wear rate increases greatly when the water cut ranges from 70% to 85%, and increases gradually when the water cut is less than 70% or more than 85%. The higher the water cut is, the greater the wear rate will be. SEM (scanning electron microscope) micrographs show that the worn surface of the tubing is smoother, with shallow grooves, when the water cut is 55%; when the water cut is 95%, there are broader and deeper grooves on the worn surface. The results also show that the wear rate of the sprayed wear-resistant coating of sucker rod/tubing is less than that of the unsprayed sucker rod/tubing.展开更多
It is important to achieve continuous, stable and efficient pumping well operation in actual oilfield operation. Down-hole pumping well working conditions can be monitored in real-time and a reasonable production sche...It is important to achieve continuous, stable and efficient pumping well operation in actual oilfield operation. Down-hole pumping well working conditions can be monitored in real-time and a reasonable production scheme can be designed when computer diagnosis is used. However, it is difficult to make a comprehensive analysis to supply efficient technical guidance for operation of the pumping well with multiple faults of down-hole conditions, which cannot be effectively dealt with by the common methods. To solve this problem, a method based on designated component analysis (DCA) is used in this paper. Freeman chain code is used to represent the down-hole dynamometer card whose important characteristics are extracted to construct a designated mode set. A control chart is used as a basis for fault detection. The upper and lower control lines on the control chart are determined from standard samples in normal working conditions. In an incompletely orthogonal mode, the designated mode set could be divided into some subsets in which the modes are completely orthogonal. The observed data is projected into each designated mode to realize fault detection according to the upper and lower control lines. The examples show that the proposed method can effectively diagnose multiple faults of down-hole conditions.展开更多
Aiming at the detection of the sucker rod defects,a real-time detection system is designed using the non-destructive testing technology of magnetic flux leakage(MFL).An MFL measurement system consists of many parts,an...Aiming at the detection of the sucker rod defects,a real-time detection system is designed using the non-destructive testing technology of magnetic flux leakage(MFL).An MFL measurement system consists of many parts,and this study focuses on the signal acquisition and processing system.First of all,this paper introduces the hardware part of the acquisition system in detail,including the selection of the Hall-effect sensor,the design of the signal conditioning circuit,and the working process of the single chip computer(SCM)control serial port.Based on LabVIEW,a graphical programming software,the software part of the acquisition system is written,including serial port parameter configuration,detection signal recognition,original signal filtering,real-time display,data storage and playback.Finally,an experimental platform for the MFL detection is set up,and the MFL measurement is carried out on the transverse and longitudinal defects of the sucker rod surface.The experimental result shows that the designed acquisition and processing system has good detection performance,simple design and high flexibility.展开更多
Obtaining petroleum at the cost of electrical energy is a common problem in almost all oil fields, and it is mainly caused by low duty radio of induction motor used in beam pumping units. Traditional beam-pumping unit...Obtaining petroleum at the cost of electrical energy is a common problem in almost all oil fields, and it is mainly caused by low duty radio of induction motor used in beam pumping units. Traditional beam-pumping units have many intrinsic disadvantages such as low efficiency, complex transmission devices, poor flexibility, tremendous volume and weight in long stroke, etc.Therefore, a novel direct driven linear electromagnetic pumping unit (EMPU) has been developed by combining oil extraction technology with linear motor technology. The thrust of EMPU matches the changing of suspension center load to improve the system efficiency and cut down the consumption of energy. Based on previous experience, a small-scale prototype was developed and a simulation was conducted with it. Both theoretical analyses and experimental study showed that the problems exiting in beam pumping units can be solved with EMPU system, and this is a new method which can be used to solve high energy waste in oil fields.展开更多
The magnetic circuit of a kind of permanent magnetic sucker attached to the tracks of a wall climbing robot was researched. The formula of the attractive force of sucker to a wall was derived and the relationship betw...The magnetic circuit of a kind of permanent magnetic sucker attached to the tracks of a wall climbing robot was researched. The formula of the attractive force of sucker to a wall was derived and the relationship between the force and the air gaps was analyzed. Furthermore the effect of the parameters of the magnetic sucker on the sucker’s performance was discussed. The experiments show that proper selections of the sucker’s structural parameters can provide sufficient attractive force so as to make the wall climbing robot move safely on the steel wall surface.展开更多
The Wall climbing Robot is a kind of robot used in extremely hazardous environment, which has very widely use. In this paper, we introduced a new kind of wall climbing robot, which are used in cleaning work. It was de...The Wall climbing Robot is a kind of robot used in extremely hazardous environment, which has very widely use. In this paper, we introduced a new kind of wall climbing robot, which are used in cleaning work. It was designed with single sucker and special designed sealing mechanism, which can be used to do cleaning work on ceramic and glasses surface of high buildings(about 70 meters).展开更多
Biomechanical properties of squid suckers were studied to provide inspiration for the development of sucker artefacts for a robotic octopus. Mechanical support of the rings found inside squid suckers was studied by be...Biomechanical properties of squid suckers were studied to provide inspiration for the development of sucker artefacts for a robotic octopus. Mechanical support of the rings found inside squid suckers was studied by bending tests. Tensile tests were carried out to study the maximum possible sucking force produced by squid suckers based on the strength of sucker stalks, normalized by the sucking areas. The squid suckers were also directly tested to obtain sucking forces by a special testing ar- rangement. Inspired by the squid suckers, three types of sucker artefacts were developed for the arm skin of an octopus inspired robot. The first sucker artefact made of knitted nylon sheet reinforced silicone rubber has the same shape as the squid suckers. Like real squid suckers, this type of artefact also has a stalk that is connected to the arm skin and a ring to give radial support. The second design is a straight cylindrical structure with uniform wall thickness made of silicone rubber. One end of the cylinder is directly connected to the arm skin and the other end is open. The final design of the sucker has a cylindrical base and a concave meniscus top. The meniscus was formed naturally using the surface tension of silicone gel, which leads to a higher level of the liquid around the edge of a container. The wall thickness decreases towards the tip of the sucker opening. Sucking forces of all three types of sucker artefacts were measured. Advantages and disadvantages of each sucker type were discussed. The final design of suckers has been implemented to the arm skin prototypes.展开更多
基金Innovation fund project for graduate students of ChinaUniversity of Petroleum(East China)(No.22CX04032A)the Fundamental Research Funds for the CentralUniversities on this study is gratefully acknowledged+2 种基金the support of‘National Natural Science Foundation of China’(No.52304015)‘Postdoctoral Innovation Project of Shandong Province’(No.SDCX-ZG-202203098)‘Qingdao Postdoctoral Grant Project’(No.qdyy20210083).
文摘Composite sucker rods are widely used in oil fields because of light weight,high strength,and corrosion resistance.Bonded technology becomes the primary connection method of composites.However,the joints with composite sucker rods are prone to debone and fracture.The connected characteristics are less considered,so the failure mechanism of the joint is still unclear.Based on the cohesive zone model(CZM)and the Johnson-Cook constitutive model,a novel full-scale numerical model of the joint with composite sucker rod was established,and verified by pull-out experiments.The mechanical properties and slip characteristics of the joint were studied,and the damaged procession of the joint was explored.The results showed that:a)the numerical model was in good agreement with the experimental results,and the error is within 5%;b)the von Mises stress,shear stress,and interface stress distributed symmetrically along the circumferential path increased gradually from the fixed end to the loading end;c)the first-bonded interface near the loading end was damaged at first,followed by debonding of the second-bonded interface,leading to the complete shear fracture of the epoxy,and resulted in the debonding of the joint with composite sucker rod,which can provide a theoretical basis for the structural design and optimization of the joint.
文摘An exact forecast of the failures of a sucker rod-pumped well in a production area means much for an oilfield’s operation budget, operational arrangement and production plan. In this paper, according to the characteristics of failed sucker rod-pumped well randomness and strong outburst, with the gray GM (1,1) forecast model and the Markov forecast model combined, gray GM (1,1) forecast model is utilized to handle the primary data of an oilfield, and Markov forecast model is utilized to calculate the state transfer probability of forecast value. Then, the gray Markov forecast model considering the influence of randomness factors is formed. Field results prove that the calculation precision of this method is higher and the practicability is greater.
基金support by the Major Scientific and Technological Projects of CNPC under Grant no.ZD2019-184-004the National Research Council of Science and Technology Major Project under Grant no.2016ZX05042004+1 种基金the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central University under Grant no.20CX02307Athe Opening Fund of National Engineering Laboratory of Offshore Geophysical and Exploration Equipment under Grant no.20CX02307A
文摘A highly precise and timely diagnosis technology can help effectively monitor and adjust the sucker rod production system(SRPS)used in oil wells to ensure a safe and efficient production.The current diagnosis method is pattern recognition of a dynamometer card(DC)based on feature extraction and perceptron.The premise of this method is that the training and target data have the same distribution.However,the training data are collected from a field SRPS with different system parameters designed to adapt to production conditions,which may significantly affect the diagnostic accuracy.To address this issue,in this study,an improved model of the sucker rod string(SRS)is derived by adding faultparameter dimensions,with which DCs under 16 working conditions could be generated.Subsequently an adaptive diagnosis method is proposed by taking simulated DCs generated near the working point of the target SRPS as training data.Meanwhile,to further improve the accuracy of the proposed method,the DC features are improved by relative normalization and using additional features of the DC position to increase the distance between different types of samples.The parameters of the perceptron are optimized to promote its discriminability.Finally,the accuracy and real-time performance of the proposed adaptive diagnosis method are validated using field data.
基金support from the Key Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61034005)Postgraduate Scientific Research and Innovation Projects of Basic Scientific Research Operating Expenses of Ministry of Education (N100604001)
文摘Downhole working conditions of sucker rod pumping wells are automatically identified on a computer from the analysis of dynamometer cards. In this process, extraction of feature parameters and pattern classification are two key steps. The dynamometer card is firstly divided into four parts which include different production information according to the "four point method" used in actual oilfield production, and then the moment invariants for pattern recognition are extracted. An improved support vector machine (SVM) method is used for pattern classification whose error penalty parameter C and kernel function parameter g are optimally chosen by the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. The simulation results show the method proposed in this paper has good classification results.
基金the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61403040)
文摘Dynamometer cards are commonly used to analyze down-hole working conditions of pumping systems in actual oil production. Nowadays, the traditional supervised learning methods heavily rely on the classification accuracy of the training samples. In order to reduce the errors of manual classification, an automatic clustering algorithm is proposed and applied to diagnose down-hole conditions of pumping systems. The spectral clustering (SC) is a new clustering algorithm, which is suitable for any data distribution. However, it is sensitive to initial cluster centers and scale parameters, and needs to predefine the cluster number. In order to overcome these shortcom- ings, we propose an automatic clustering algorithm, fast black hole-spectral clustering (FBH-SC). The FBH algo- rithm is used to replace the K-mean method in SC, and a CritC index function is used as the target function to automatically choose the best scale parameter and clus- tering number in the clustering process. Different simulation experiments were designed to define the relationship among scale parameter, clustering number, CritC index value, and clustering accuracy. Finally, an example is given to validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
基金supported by National Key Sci-tech Major Special Item of China (Grant No. 2009ZX05038004)Shandong Provincial Science and Technology Development Project of China (Grant No. 2009GG10007008)Graduate Innovation Fund of China University of Petroleum(Grant No.CXZD11-09)
文摘The existing design of the pumping systems mainly focuses on the approximate computational formulae and procedures,which are developed based on the analytic approaches of conventional oil/gas fields.The calculation of polished rod loads usually just concerns about the static and inertial loads.And the computation of gearbox torque generally uses empirical formulae and correction factors.The above modeling procedures,if applied to the coalbed methane(CBM) wells,can not give the desired accuracy of the system design and its pertinent analysis.In this paper,based on the kinematic and dynamic analysis of the pumping system,the kinematic relation of polished rod is analyzed,and the variation of the total loads of polished rod is developed with the limits of CBM well conditions along the string.The gearbox torque calculation model is established by combining the counterbalance effect with the calculated dynamometer cards and torque factors.The application characteristics of this model are demonstrated by the example of ZH002-4 well in Qinshui basin.The interpretations of results show that the cranks of beam units should rotate in a counter clockwise direction viewed with the wellhead to the right.Compared with oil?gas fields,the dynamic and friction to polished rod load ratios are relatively high and the computation of polished rod loads should involve the static and inertial loads,as well as vibration and friction loads.And the dynamic load ratio decreases rapidly during the production.Besides,the total deformation of the string is small in CBM wells.As for balanced operation,the gearbox torque load usually has two approximately equal peaks and the magnitudes of instantaneous torque are just within 50% of unbalanced gearbox loadings.The proposed research improves efficiency of the pumping system,loads the pumping unit more uniformly,and provides the reasonable basis for selecting the units.
文摘Inuestigated wear tests of grade D sucker rod and N80 tubing with a produced liquid are the effect of the water cut of produced liquid on the wear rate and the wear coefficient of the friction pair. And presented here is a comparison of tribological performance of tubing/sucker rod with sprayed tubing/sucker rod and tubing/sprayed sucker rod. The results show that one of the main reasons for wear failure between the sucker rod and the tubing is a high water cut of the produced liquid. The wear rate increases greatly when the water cut ranges from 70% to 85%, and increases gradually when the water cut is less than 70% or more than 85%. The higher the water cut is, the greater the wear rate will be. SEM (scanning electron microscope) micrographs show that the worn surface of the tubing is smoother, with shallow grooves, when the water cut is 55%; when the water cut is 95%, there are broader and deeper grooves on the worn surface. The results also show that the wear rate of the sprayed wear-resistant coating of sucker rod/tubing is less than that of the unsprayed sucker rod/tubing.
基金supported by the Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (61034005)Postgraduate Scientific Research and Innovation Projects of Basic Scientific Research Operating Expensesof Ministry of Education (N100604001)Excellent Doctoral Dissertations Cultivation Project of Northeastern University
文摘It is important to achieve continuous, stable and efficient pumping well operation in actual oilfield operation. Down-hole pumping well working conditions can be monitored in real-time and a reasonable production scheme can be designed when computer diagnosis is used. However, it is difficult to make a comprehensive analysis to supply efficient technical guidance for operation of the pumping well with multiple faults of down-hole conditions, which cannot be effectively dealt with by the common methods. To solve this problem, a method based on designated component analysis (DCA) is used in this paper. Freeman chain code is used to represent the down-hole dynamometer card whose important characteristics are extracted to construct a designated mode set. A control chart is used as a basis for fault detection. The upper and lower control lines on the control chart are determined from standard samples in normal working conditions. In an incompletely orthogonal mode, the designated mode set could be divided into some subsets in which the modes are completely orthogonal. The observed data is projected into each designated mode to realize fault detection according to the upper and lower control lines. The examples show that the proposed method can effectively diagnose multiple faults of down-hole conditions.
文摘Aiming at the detection of the sucker rod defects,a real-time detection system is designed using the non-destructive testing technology of magnetic flux leakage(MFL).An MFL measurement system consists of many parts,and this study focuses on the signal acquisition and processing system.First of all,this paper introduces the hardware part of the acquisition system in detail,including the selection of the Hall-effect sensor,the design of the signal conditioning circuit,and the working process of the single chip computer(SCM)control serial port.Based on LabVIEW,a graphical programming software,the software part of the acquisition system is written,including serial port parameter configuration,detection signal recognition,original signal filtering,real-time display,data storage and playback.Finally,an experimental platform for the MFL detection is set up,and the MFL measurement is carried out on the transverse and longitudinal defects of the sucker rod surface.The experimental result shows that the designed acquisition and processing system has good detection performance,simple design and high flexibility.
文摘Obtaining petroleum at the cost of electrical energy is a common problem in almost all oil fields, and it is mainly caused by low duty radio of induction motor used in beam pumping units. Traditional beam-pumping units have many intrinsic disadvantages such as low efficiency, complex transmission devices, poor flexibility, tremendous volume and weight in long stroke, etc.Therefore, a novel direct driven linear electromagnetic pumping unit (EMPU) has been developed by combining oil extraction technology with linear motor technology. The thrust of EMPU matches the changing of suspension center load to improve the system efficiency and cut down the consumption of energy. Based on previous experience, a small-scale prototype was developed and a simulation was conducted with it. Both theoretical analyses and experimental study showed that the problems exiting in beam pumping units can be solved with EMPU system, and this is a new method which can be used to solve high energy waste in oil fields.
基金Doctoral Fund of the National EducationCommittee
文摘The magnetic circuit of a kind of permanent magnetic sucker attached to the tracks of a wall climbing robot was researched. The formula of the attractive force of sucker to a wall was derived and the relationship between the force and the air gaps was analyzed. Furthermore the effect of the parameters of the magnetic sucker on the sucker’s performance was discussed. The experiments show that proper selections of the sucker’s structural parameters can provide sufficient attractive force so as to make the wall climbing robot move safely on the steel wall surface.
文摘The Wall climbing Robot is a kind of robot used in extremely hazardous environment, which has very widely use. In this paper, we introduced a new kind of wall climbing robot, which are used in cleaning work. It was designed with single sucker and special designed sealing mechanism, which can be used to do cleaning work on ceramic and glasses surface of high buildings(about 70 meters).
文摘Biomechanical properties of squid suckers were studied to provide inspiration for the development of sucker artefacts for a robotic octopus. Mechanical support of the rings found inside squid suckers was studied by bending tests. Tensile tests were carried out to study the maximum possible sucking force produced by squid suckers based on the strength of sucker stalks, normalized by the sucking areas. The squid suckers were also directly tested to obtain sucking forces by a special testing ar- rangement. Inspired by the squid suckers, three types of sucker artefacts were developed for the arm skin of an octopus inspired robot. The first sucker artefact made of knitted nylon sheet reinforced silicone rubber has the same shape as the squid suckers. Like real squid suckers, this type of artefact also has a stalk that is connected to the arm skin and a ring to give radial support. The second design is a straight cylindrical structure with uniform wall thickness made of silicone rubber. One end of the cylinder is directly connected to the arm skin and the other end is open. The final design of the sucker has a cylindrical base and a concave meniscus top. The meniscus was formed naturally using the surface tension of silicone gel, which leads to a higher level of the liquid around the edge of a container. The wall thickness decreases towards the tip of the sucker opening. Sucking forces of all three types of sucker artefacts were measured. Advantages and disadvantages of each sucker type were discussed. The final design of suckers has been implemented to the arm skin prototypes.