Multiple fault diagnosis of down-hole conditions of sucker-rod pumping wells based on Freeman chain code and DCA

Abstract

It is important to achieve continuous, stable and efficient pumping well operation in actual oilfield operation. Down-hole pumping well working conditions can be monitored in real-time and a reasonable production scheme can be designed when computer diagnosis is used. However, it is difficult to make a comprehensive analysis to supply efficient technical guidance for operation of the pumping well with multiple faults of down-hole conditions, which cannot be effectively dealt with by the common methods. To solve this problem, a method based on designated component analysis (DCA) is used in this paper. Freeman chain code is used to represent the down-hole dynamometer card whose important characteristics are extracted to construct a designated mode set. A control chart is used as a basis for fault detection. The upper and lower control lines on the control chart are determined from standard samples in normal working conditions. In an incompletely orthogonal mode, the designated mode set could be divided into some subsets in which the modes are completely orthogonal. The observed data is projected into each designated mode to realize fault detection according to the upper and lower control lines. The examples show that the proposed method can effectively diagnose multiple faults of down-hole conditions.