Assessment of the Acoustic Reflectometry Technique to Detect Pipe Blockages

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Paulo Cesar da Camara Monteiro Junior ◽  
Luciana Loureiro da Silva ◽  
Theodoro Antoun Netto
Keyword(s):  
Detection System ◽  
Acoustic Pulse ◽  
Physical Parameters ◽  
Internal Diameter ◽  
Measured Signal ◽  
Oil Well ◽  
Well Production ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Parallel Finite Element ◽  
Pipeline Design

Abstract Flow assurance is an important aspect of deepwater pipeline design and operation, since one of the critical issues is the eventual initiation and growth of hydrate or paraffin blockages under certain conditions. Another relevant problem is the incidence of inorganic scale deposition in oil well production tubes during operation. This work deals with experimental and numerical simulations of an acoustic system to identify and measure blockages. The technique uses a short duration acoustic pulse that is injected into the pipe. When the pulse encounters an impedance discontinuity, a portion is reflected towards the acoustic source and, depending on fluid type, microphones or hydrophones can be used to measure the signals. Analysis of the measured signal reflections can provide valuable data related to location and size of the blockages. An experimental setup with a steel pipe of 4” internal diameter and length of 100 m was developed to evaluate the suitability of the technique for gas pipelines. In parallel, finite element analyses were performed using the commercial software Abaqus to simulate the same physical parameters. The experiments were numerically reproduced with good correlation proving the potential of the technique. Subsequently, a parametric study was carried out to examine the acoustic detection capability using different blockage types. Finally, a prototype of the acoustic reflectometry detection system was developed and tested in a full-scale onshore water-filled pipeline to show the feasibility of the method for detecting blockages.

Acoustic Reflectometry for Blockage Detection in Pipeline

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Loureiro Silva ◽  
P. C. C. Monteiro ◽  
J. L. A. Vidal ◽  
Theodoro A. Netto
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Pulse ◽  
Internal Diameter ◽  
Measured Signal ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Sound Pulse ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Impulsive Response ◽  
Parallel Finite Element ◽  
Fit For Purpose ◽  
Pipeline Design

Flow assurance is an important aspect of offshore, particularly deepwater pipeline design and operation, since one of the critical issues is the eventual initiation and growth of hydrate or paraffin blockages under certain conditions. Ideally, operators would benefit from online information regarding position and extent of an eventual blockage in a pipeline. The aim of this work is to apply acoustic technology to design and make a prototype that can be used in a pipe to efficiently identify and measure blockages. The technique uses a short duration sound pulse that is injected into the pipe. When the acoustic pulse encounters an impedance discontinuity, a portion is reflected back towards the acoustic source and microphones or hydrophones. Analysis of the measured signal reflections can provide valuable data related to location and size of the blockages. An experimental setup with a pipe of 4″ internal diameter and length of 100 m was constructed, and different excitation signals for the impulsive response function measurements were conducted. Microphones and hydrophones measurements were recorded using a fit-for-purpose data acquisition system with sampling rates of up to 1kS/s per channel. The tests were performed in air and water using different sizes of blockages and in different positions in the pipe. In parallel, finite element analyses were performed using the commercial software Abaqus to simulate the same conditions. The experiments were numerically reproduced with good correlation proving the potential of the technique.

scholarly journals Predicting the Oil Well Production Based on Multi Expression Programming

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Ma ◽  
Zhi-bin Liu
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Gene Expression Programming ◽  
Back Propagation ◽  
Petroleum Engineering ◽  
Reconstruction Technique ◽  
Oil Well ◽  
Empirical Methods ◽  
Well Production ◽  
Multi Expression Programming ◽  
Intelligent Methods

Predicting the oil well production is very important and also quite a complex mission for the petroleum engineering. Due to its complexity, the previous empirical methods could not perform well for different kind of wells, and intelligent methods are applied to solve this problem. In this paper the multi expression programming (MEP) method has been employed to build the prediction model for oil well production, combined with the phase space reconstruction technique. The MEP has shown a better performance than the back propagation networks, gene expression programming method and the Arps decline model in the experiments, and it has also been shown that the optimal state of the MEP could be easily obtained, which could overcome the over-fitting.

Heat Flux Determination From Ultrasonic Pulse Measurements

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. R. Myers ◽  
D. G. Walker ◽  
D. E. Yuhas ◽  
M. J. Mutton
Keyword(s):  
Heat Flux ◽  
Data Reduction ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Acoustic Pulse ◽  
Time Of Flight ◽  
Ultrasonic Pulse ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
Measured Signal ◽  
Suitable Model ◽  
Ultrasonic Time

Ultrasonic time of flight measurements have been used to estimate the interior temperature of propulsion systems remotely. All that is needed is acoustic access to the boundary in question and a suitable model for the heat transfer along the path of the pulse train. The interior temperature is then deduced from a change in the time of flight and the temperature dependent velocity factor, which is obtained for various materials as a calibration step. Because the acoustic pulse samples the entire temperature distribution, inverse data reduction routines have been shown to provide stable and accurate estimates of the unknown temperature boundary. However, this technique is even more interesting when applied to unknown heat flux boundaries. Normally, the estimation of heat fluxes is even more susceptible to uncertainty in the measurement compared to temperature estimates. However, ultrasonic sensors can be treated as extremely high-speed calorimeters where the heat flux is directly proportional to the measured signal. Through some simple one-dimensional analyses, this work will show that heat flux is a more natural and stable quantity to estimate from ultrasonic time of flight. We have also introduced an approach for data reduction that makes use of a composite velocity factor, which is easier to measure.

Condenser Tube Examination Using Acoustic Pulse Reflectometry

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noam Amir ◽  
Oded Barzelay ◽  
Amir Yefet ◽  
Tal Pechter
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Pulse ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
Industrial Applications ◽  
Detection Methods ◽  
Internal Diameter ◽  
Condenser Tube ◽  
Indirect Methods ◽  
Wave Separation ◽  
System A ◽  
Propagating Waves

Acoustic Pulse Reflectometry (APR) has been applied extensively to tubular systems in research laboratories, for purposes of measuring input impedance, bore reconstruction, and fault detection. Industrial applications have been mentioned in the literature, though they have not been widely implemented. Academic APR systems are extremely bulky, often employing source tubes of six meters in length, which limits their industrial use severely. Furthermore, leak detection methods described in the literature are based on indirect methods, by carrying out bore reconstruction and finding discrepancies between the expected and reconstructed bore. In this paper we describe an APR system designed specifically for detecting faults commonly found in industrial tube systems: leaks, increases in internal diameter caused by wall thinning, and constrictions. The system employs extremely short source tubes, on the order of 20cm, making it extremely portable, but creating a large degree of overlap between forward and backward propagating waves in the system. A series of algorithmic innovations enable the system to perform the wave separation mathematically, and then identify the above faults automatically, with a measurement time on the order of 10 seconds per tube. We present several case studies of condenser tube inspection, showing how different faults are identified and reported.

scholarly journals Research and development of viscosity reducer for oil well production fluid in cold transportation

2020 ◽  
Vol 508 ◽  
pp. 012038
Author(s):  
Zhi Ma ◽  
Changfeng Wang ◽  
Zhonghai Qin ◽  
Xiaolong Gao ◽  
Lili Wei ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Research And Development ◽  
Oil Well ◽  
Well Production ◽  
Viscosity Reducer

scholarly journals Implementation of Tikhonov Regularization in Oil Well Liquid Level Reading Data

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Nurdi Irianto ◽  
Sudjati Rachmat ◽  
Leksono Mucharam ◽  
Sapto Wahyu Indratno
Keyword(s):  
Tikhonov Regularization ◽  
Field Data ◽  
Regularization Parameter ◽  
Petroleum Industry ◽  
Production Capacity ◽  
Liquid Level ◽  
Column Height ◽  
Oil Well ◽  
Well Production ◽  
Data Reading

In the petroleum industry, it is common practice to do survey well liquid level for monitoring well in the purpose of evaluation well production capacity, for setting performance of downhole pump. Here we proposed liquid level survey using acoustic well sounder (echosounder) equipment. The reading of liquid level in the oil well is contained noises due to some physical and mechanical condition. An idea to handle large scattered field data contains noises is smoothness method by Tikhonov regularization.Liquid level survey is set up under shunt in well condition, to clearly monitoring liquid level rises in the well column. So, we have acquired field data reading. Beside the field data reading using echosounder tool, we also need to calculate expected liquid level, because that noises factor in the field data. The equation is generated to define calculation of liquid level increases in the well column as a function of time. The initial condition of started liquid column height h0 and well production rate Q0 at t=0 is definite. We build the Volterra integral equation of the 1st kind for this calculation purpose.The ill-posed problem performs in the data, needs the solution for smoothness. Tikhonov regularization (Least Squared problem) has handling this problem. Some value of regularization parameter were employed to the calculation.This paper is an innovative idea to maximum utilization of fluid level data monitoring in the well, while the acquired data is scattered or contains error. After smoothness of the data, qualified model solution curve is fully advantage for well interpretation. 

Design of a PLC-Based Automatic Separate Channel Filter Rod Sampling Detection System

2014 ◽  
Vol 621 ◽  
pp. 181-186
Author(s):  
Wei Ying ◽  
Yu Liang Li ◽  
Guang Zhang ◽  
Ting Fang ◽  
Liang Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Detection System ◽  
Control Unit ◽  
Physical Parameters ◽  
Dual Channel ◽  
Separate Channel ◽  
Safety And Reliability ◽  
On Line ◽  
Automatic Machinery ◽  
Data Terminal ◽  
Channel Filter

DF10 filter rod forming machine produced by Italy GD Automatic Machinery Ltd is the world's fastest filter rod maker adopting the design of dual-channel. To achieve automatic sampling detection on line, a PLC-based automatic separate channel filter rod sampling detection system has been designed. Mainly composed of a sampling and launching device, matching tube, receiving device, a test instruments, PLC control unit and data terminal, the system first samples the filter rods from the two channels, then launches them into the test instrument to measure their physical parameters, and after wards send the real-time feedback of testing data to the data terminal. The application results show that the system has the advantages of convenient operation, high stability, safety and reliability. With an effective batch’s completion rate above 98%, it greatly reduces the labor intensity of operators and QC personnel, and significantly improves the quality control capacity of filter rod production.

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