Abstract
Because of the increasing economic necessity for using light oil-well pumping equipment, steps must be taken to keep loads and stresses at a minimum. Loads can be controlled to some extent by using proper speeds, stroke, and plunger size. Proper counterbalancing has a greater influence on peak loads and stresses than any other item of equipment design. Vibration and critical-speed problems are among the most difficult experienced in pumping systems. Such systems do not lend themselves to mathematical analyses so the authors have undertaken to solve the more complicated problems by replacing such involved systems by an equivalent system, which will have the same capacity for storage of kinetic and potential energy. A mathematical explanation of the procedure used in reducing a pumping system to equivalent mass, and equivalent elastic systems, followed by calculations of typical elements of the system and examples illustrating specific applications of the method, are given.
