Sensor design methodology for downhole sonic measurements

Hiroshi Hori , Yuichiro Wada

The first sonic logging tools were mainly used to provide lithology identification in oil wells. Since this time, sonic logging evolved from monopole to multi-pole measurements in order to characterize formations and boreholes for safe and efficient well placement. Sonic tools transmit and receive acoustic waveforms propagating along the borehole. Acquired waveforms are to be processed for extracting interpretable borehole and formation properties. The purpose of such tool hardware is to record quality acoustic waveforms in a wide variety of boreholes and formations for different applications. The challenges lay in designing sensors to acquire signals for new measurements. We initiate and iterate hardware designs by utilizing numerical modeling followed by prototype evaluation, before validating the final design in actual oil wells. This paper presents general methodologies of downhole sonic sensor design based on numerical modeling and prototype evaluation.

Mots clés: downhole acoustics; sonic; sensor design

Domaines: Acoustique [physics.class-ph]

Hiroshi Hori, Yuichiro Wada. Sensor design methodology for downhole sonic measurements. Acoustics 2012, Apr 2012, Nantes, France. ⟨hal-00811069⟩