A Novel Conical Spiral Transmission Line Sensor-Array Water Holdup Detection Tool Achieving Full Scale and Low Error Measurement.

Yong Wei,Guoquan Liu,Jiefu Chen,Chaoxian Qi,Houquan Yu,Qiang Chen

doi:10.3390/s19194140

Yong Wei, Guoquan Liu + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/s19194140

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Abstract

To dynamically monitor the horizontal well, we studied the oil–water two-phase water holdup detection method based on transmission lines, and designed a micro-sensor and a sensor-array water holdup detection tool. We modeled the relationship of the dielectric constant of the transmission line filling medium and the amplitude and phase shift of the electromagnetic wave signal on the transmission line by using the time-domain analysis. We proposed a novel method to measure the water holdup of oil–water mixtures based on the phase shift of signals on the conical spiral transmission line. Furthermore, we simulated and optimized the structural parameters by software simulation, and developed a small conical spiral water holdup sensor suitable for arraying. The single sensor with detection circuits can achieve the full scale (water holdup from 0% to 100%) measurement with resolution better than 3%. On this basis, 12 sensors are used to develop a clock-like sensor-array water holdup detection tool, realizing the array detection of the distribution of the cross-section medium in horizontal wells.

Highlights

The rapid expansion of the horizontal well application and the waterflooding technology has lead to more serious reservoir water problems
The conductance method is affected by fluid salinity, and in particular, it will fail if the water holdup is less than 20% because there is no continuous water phase between measuring electrodes
In order to visually reflect the water holdup measured by each sensor, the results ofthe normalized detection values are displayed in pseudo-color

Summary

Introduction

The rapid expansion of the horizontal well application and the waterflooding technology has lead to more serious reservoir water problems. The most effective method to measure the distribution and location of water production is to detect water holdup, which can directly affect the production efficiency of horizontal wells. The Flow Scanner [1] produced by Schlumberger and Capacitance Array Tool [2] and the Resistance Array Tool [3,4] produced by Sondex. Their detection methods can be basically divided into the conductance method and the capacitance method. The conductance method is affected by fluid salinity, and in particular, it will fail if the water holdup is less than 20% because there is no continuous water phase between measuring electrodes. The capacitance method [9,10,11,12] is based on the monotonically increasing relationship between water holdup and dielectric constant of oil–water two-phase fluid

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