Acoustic Behavior of Flow From Fracture To Wellbore
Abstract
Acoustic sensing technology has a long history of being implemented in the oil and gas industry; from the early days of measuring seismic activity to determine oil and gas reserve to the present day technology such as fiber optic Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) in the near wellbore measurement. The newly adapted DAS technology is capable of measuring the acoustic signature in the near wellbore fracture region and analyzing the measured data to predict important downhole parameters such as active producing zone, flow rate, etc. However, DAS is still a new technology partially due to the complexity of the acoustic phenomenal it tries to analyze.
In this study, how different parameters influence the acoustic behavior is investigated. The study is conducted on a laboratory setup that simulates the downhole condition when fluid flows from the fracture and perforation tunnel to the wellbore. To better simulate the downhole condition, a fracture cell and wellbore assembly are designed and built to conduct the experiments. The laboratory setup and experimental procedure are described in detail in the experimental setup section. The result of the experiments conducted under different conditions is shown in the experimental result section. Based on the experimental result, different parameters change the acoustic signal differently. An empirical correlation is concluded from the experimental result to relate flow rate and acoustic signal. The study also concludes that important downhole parameters such as flow rate can be estimated from the distributed acoustic sensing data.
Citation
Chen, Kyle (2015). Acoustic Behavior of Flow From Fracture To Wellbore. Master's thesis, Texas A & M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /155120.