A technology for monitoring the onset of malfunctions in oil field reservoir pressure maintenance equipment

Abstract

Existing control and management systems of oil field reservoir pressure maintenance equipment do not warn of the beginning of the latent period of accidents. At the same time, accidents are preceded by the emergence of certain defects, followed by their latent period, after which they develop. Only after that they begin to affect the readings of measuring instruments of control and management systems. The duration of the latent period depends on the dynamics of defect development. Because of the above, control systems detect the beginning of an emergency when it becomes explicit. This leads to unreasonable costs, since elimination of the defect at the moment of its origin requires much less funds and time than after-accident pump repairs. It is shown in the paper that as a result of continuous rotational motion under high pressure, a vibration process is inevitably formed in this equipment, and the beginning of the latent period of malfunctions makes a clear impact on their noisy vibration signals, with a correlation emerging between the noise and the useful component. To control the beginning of malfunctions in reservoir pressure maintenance equipment it is proposed to use the estimates of noise variance and cross-correlation functions between the useful signal and the noise, which allow forming informative attributes for warning and control of the beginning of the latent period of malfunctions. The proposed technologies can also be used to improve accident-free operation at compressor stations of main oil and gas pipelines, at drilling rigs, at artesian wells, in transport, etc.