It looks like a standard 36-inch pipe wrench, but is so scientific that all an operator has to do is tell it how much torque to use.
Robert Watson, chairman of the department of computer science in the School of Natural and Computational Sciences at McMurry University, has developed a tool being used by the Oklahoma-based oil field services company, Thru Tubing Solutions, to electronically measure torque when operators are assembling tools.
Called the E-Wrench, it reports torque and other data through a Bluetooth connection. It also is compatible with tablets and cellphones.
"Their customers were demanding documented measurements when they assemble their tools: normal quality program requirement," said Watson, whose brother works as a mechanical engineer for Thru Tubing. "And they couldn't take those measurements because there's no tool that does that. They needed one made, and they were looking for somebody and all the people they knew in the business were too busy to do it."
The first concept also was through a Bluetooth device with a display, but "that got some issues with patents, so we couldn't have any display on the wrench," Watson said.
A little modification here and there resulted in the finished product.
A magnet activates the device, and the circuitry runs off four AA batteries.
The mobile app "talks" to the wrench with a user interface that provides summary performance data as well as a dynamic report of the amount of torque exerted by the user. It records and reports data on such aspects as wrench temperature and battery voltage, and is sensitive enough to measure the pressure from a single finger tip.
"The phone can send an email to the customer, and there's a server (Thru Tubing) put together that the phone sends information. The server sticks it into a database so the customer can pull the data as needed," Watson explained. "Without this wrench, they can still measure the torque but they have to use power tongs, which is a great big tool that has to be lifted with a winch. This avoids a lot of expensive tooling."
In short, this is how the E-Wrench works: The user programs or tells the phone what torque is desired.
"And it will beep, telling you how close you are getting to your target and it tells you when you have reached it," Watson said. "The phone automatically knows when the operator starts on a new joint and resets itself."
A short-run production, which made 24 E-Wrenches, was done two months ago, and Thru Tubing is getting ready to go into a second production for 100 more. It currently takes about an hour to fabricate one E-Wrench.
"They think they may need at least 1,000 eventually just within the company, and they are looking into selling it outside the company," Watson said.
Thru Tubing owns the property rights on the tool, and Watson said he doesn't how much the selling price will be due to the infancy of the marketing stage.
"So basically, it's the same wrench they're using now; we just instrumented it with the electronics to take measurements," Watson said.
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