|Publication number||US7840102 B2|
|Application number||US 11/960,007|
|Publication date||Nov 23, 2010|
|Priority date||Jan 16, 2007|
|Also published as||CA2675436A1, CA2675436C, US20090003759, WO2008089208A2, WO2008089208A3|
|Publication number||11960007, 960007, US 7840102 B2, US 7840102B2, US-B2-7840102, US7840102 B2, US7840102B2|
|Inventors||Clark Davis Boyd|
|Original Assignee||Baker Hughes Incorporated|
|Export Citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Patent Citations (57), Non-Patent Citations (4), Referenced by (5), Classifications (16), Legal Events (2)|
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet|
This application is a non-provisional application claiming priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/885,048 filed on Jan. 16, 2007. The parent application is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
The invention relates generally to optical fiber technologies. In particular, the invention relates to optical fiber that contains pressure and temperature sensors along its length.
Available electronic sensors measure a variety of values, such as, pH, color, temperature, or pressure, to name a few. For systems that require a string of electronic sensors over a long distance, e.g., twenty to thirty kilometers or longer, powering the electronic sensors becomes difficult. Conventionally, the powering of electronic sensors requires running electrical wire from a power source to each of the electronic sensors. Powering electronic sensors electrically has been unreliable in the petroleum and gas industry. For example, electric wires spanning long distances are subject to a significant amount of interference and noise, thereby reducing the accuracy of the electronic sensors.
Optical fibers have become the communication medium of choice for long distance communication due to their excellent light transmission characteristics over long distances and the ease of fabrication of lengths of many kilometers. Further, the light being transmitted can interrogate the sensors, thus obviating the need for lengthy electrical wires. This is particularly important in the petroleum and gas industry, where strings of electronic sensors are used in wells to monitor downhole conditions.
As a result, in the petroleum and gas industry, passive fiber optic sensors are used to obtain various downhole measurements, such as, pressure or temperature. A string of optical fibers within a fiber optic system is used to communicate information from wells being drilled, as well as from completed wells. The optical fiber could be deployed with single point pressure-temperature fiber optic sensor. Discrete optical fibers are fully disclosed in International Patent Application No. PCT/US 04/28625, entitled “Optical Sensor with Co-Located Pressure and Temperature Sensors.” This application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Additionally, a series of weakly reflecting fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) may be written into a length of optical fiber or a single Point Fabry-Perot sensor may be spliced into a length of optical fiber. An optical signal is transmitted down the fiber, which is reflected and/or scattered back to a receiver and analyzed to characterize external parameters along the length of the optical fiber. Using this information, downhole measurements including but not limited to temperature, pressure, and chemical environment may be obtained.
For weakly reflecting FBGs that are written into a length of optical fiber, there is no efficient system of carrying the FBGs and deploying these sensors downhole, and a need exists for such a system.
An aspect of the invention is directed toward a system to carry an optical fiber having a plurality of optical sensors written or otherwise located thereon. Such optical fibers may extend over long distances and may be deployed in oil and gas wells.
These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become better understood when the following detailed description is read with reference to the accompanying drawings in which like characters represent like parts throughout the drawings, wherein:
As illustrated in the accompanying drawings and discussed in detail below, the present invention is directed to optical sensors distributed along an optical fiber. In accordance with the present invention, a plurality of temperature/pressure sensors is formed on an optical fiber. While any type of optical sensors, such as intrinsic or extrinsic Fabry-Perot or Bragg gratings (FBGs) can be used, FBGs are preferred because they can be readily written on to the optical fiber. The optical fiber with optical sensors distributed thereon is preferably carried in the sidewall of a capillary tube. The optical sensor and capillary tube can extend over long distances, e.g., several kilometers or miles and can cover the entire depth of an oil and gas well. In a preferred embodiment, the capillary tube is a thick-walled metal capillary tube that is typically used to carry discrete pressure temperature optical sensor(s), such as an intrinsic Fabry-Perot sensor or an extrinsic Fabry-Perot sensor.
Alternatively, slot 12 can be omitted and optical fiber 20 may be attached to capillary tube 10 is a serpentine fashion to absorb the thermal expansion/contraction of tube 10. The attachment can be continuous or at discrete spots.
Within each profiled area 14, at least one optical sensor, e.g., FBG 18, is formed on optical fiber 20, as best shown in
In an alternative embodiment, capillary tube 10 and interior space 22 are segmented into a plurality of sealed sections, for example, by walls or membranes orthogonal to the longitudinal axis of the capillary tube similar to that of a bamboo stalk. One or more optical sensors can be located on each segment. An advantage of segmenting the interior space 22 into sealed sections is that if interior space 22 is breached, i.e., exposed to well pressure, only the breached section is affected and the rest of the capillary tube remains sealed for the remaining optical sensors to function.
Between adjacent profiled areas 14, optical fiber 20 is preferably loosely overstuffed or placed within slot 12, as best shown in
Since optical fiber 20 can extend for long distances, it is expected that a large number of optical fibers are written or otherwise located on the optical fiber. As such, it is preferred that advanced signal processing techniques are employed to distinguish reflected signals from the multiple optical sensors. Such advanced techniques are disclosed in commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/222,357, entitled “System and Method for Monitoring a Well” and filed on Sep. 8, 2005. The '357 patent application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Among other things, the '357 application discloses a physical interleaving technique, where pluralities of sensors are disposed along the length of an optical fiber on each side of a reference reflector. In this technique, the corresponding sensors are placed at offset distances from the reflector to increase the sensing length. Additionally, physical interleaving technique can be expanded to combine multiple sensing lengths within one optical fiber to increase an overall sensing length. The '357 application also discusses combining multiple sensing length physical interleaving technique with wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), where each individual sensing length is designed to respond only to a wavelength that is slightly different from the next sensing length. This can further increase the sensing length by a function of the number of wavelength divisions that are present. Additionally, additional sensing length can be generated by using an aliasing technique, more specifically employing narrowband FBGs placed outside of the Nyquist sampling distance. Additional signal processing techniques are discussed in or cited within the '357 patent application.
While it is apparent that the illustrative embodiments of the invention disclosed herein fulfill the objectives of the present invention, it is appreciated that numerous modifications and other embodiments may be devised by those skilled in the art. For example, capillary tube 10 can be replaced by a carrier of another shape, such as spherical or cylindrical pressure vessels that have been profiled to form thin-walled sections thereon. Additionally, feature(s) and/or element(s) from any embodiment may be used singly or in combination with feature(s) and/or element(s) from other embodiment(s). Therefore, it will be understood that the appended claims are intended to cover all such modifications and embodiments, which would come within the spirit and scope of the present invention.
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|U.S. Classification||385/13, 385/12|
|Cooperative Classification||E21B47/123, G01L11/025, G01K11/3206, E21B47/065, G01L19/0092, G01D5/35345|
|European Classification||G01D5/353, G01D5/34, G01K11/32B, G01L11/02B, E21B47/06B, E21B47/12M2, G01L19/00S|
|Apr 4, 2008||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: BAKER HUGHES INCORPORATED, TEXAS
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:BOYD, CLARK DAVIS;REEL/FRAME:020763/0092
Effective date: 20080318
|Apr 23, 2014||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 4