Fault detection in electric submersible pumps

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10677041-B2
Application number	US-201515314898-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 15, 2015
Priority date	Jun 16, 2014
Publication date	Jun 9, 2020
Grant date	Jun 9, 2020

Abstract

A method for monitoring performance of an electric submersible pump. The method includes receiving data indicating a plurality of observable parameters from one or more sensors, generating a reduced set of components representative of at least some of the observable parameters and the reduced set having a dimensionality less than the plurality of observable parameters, identifying one or more components of the reduced set that captures a total variance of the plurality of observable parameters above a predetermined threshold, constructing at least one manifold of normal operation of the electric submersible pump in a reduced component space, receiving additional data from the sensors, transforming the additional data into the identified components establishing an electric submersible pump performance, and detecting whether a deviation of the electric submersible pump performance from a normal mode of operation of the electric submersible pump exceeds a predetermined threshold.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
receiving data, the data indicating a plurality of observable parameters, with a corresponding observable parameter dimensionality, for normal performance of an electric submersible pump;
performing Principal Component Analysis (PCA) using the received data to generate a set of components in a component space, and each of the components being representative of at least some of the plurality of observable parameters and the component space having a dimensionality less than the observable parameter dimensionality;
identifying one or more components of the set of components that captures a total variance of the plurality of observable parameters above a predetermined threshold and that defines a reduced component space having a dimensionality less than the component space;
using at least the identified one or more components, constructing a manifold that represents the normal performance of the electric submersible pump in the reduced component space;
receiving data from one or more sensors, the data from the one or more sensors indicating the plurality of observable parameters for actual performance of the electric submersible pump;
transforming the received data from the one or more sensors into the identified one or more components in the reduced component space to establish a representation of the actual performance of the electric submersible pump; and
detecting a deviation in the actual performance of the electric submersible pump from the normal performance of the electric submersible pump by comparing at least one of the identified one or more components in the reduced component space that establish the representation of the actual performance of the electric submersible pump to the manifold in the reduced component space that represents the normal performance of the electric submersible pump.

2. The method of claim 1 where the identified one or more components comprise linear combinations of at least some of the plurality of observable parameters.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the detecting the deviation comprises: determining that the representation of the actual performance of the electric submersible pump belongs to the constructed manifold.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein constructing the manifold comprises: logging the data indicative of the observable parameters while the electric submersible pump is known to be in a normal mode of operation that corresponds to the normal performance; and experimentally defining a region within the reduced component space that corresponds to the normal mode of operation that corresponds to the normal performance, wherein coordinates in the reduced component space outside of the region indicate that the deviation in the actual performance exceeds a total variance represented by the manifold.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the experimentally defining the region within the reduced component space that corresponds to the normal mode of operation of the electric submersible pump comprises applying a clustering algorithm.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the clustering algorithm is at least one of k-means clustering or Bayesian hierarchical clustering algorithm.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein detecting the deviation comprises using a statistical, hypothesis-testing approach.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifying the one or more components further comprises: ranking the components in a decreasing order of their contribution to variance of the plurality of observable parameters; and beginning to select components until a sum of the variance of the selected components exceeds the predetermined threshold.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising: generating an indication of the detection and, based on the indication of the detection, issuing a control instruction that controls the electric submersible pump.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of observable parameters comprise a motor winding temperature and a protector temperature.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein constructing the manifold comprises utilizing Hotelling's T 2 statistics.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein constructing the manifold comprises utilizing a confidence level to define a boundary between the normal performance and non-normal performance.

13. A system comprising:
a processor operatively coupled to memory that stores processor-executable instructions to instruct the system to:
receive data, the data indicating a plurality of observable parameters, with a corresponding observable parameter dimensionality, for normal performance of an electric submersible pump;
perform Principal Component Analysis (PCA) using the received data to generate a set of components in a component space, each of the components being representative of at least some of the plurality of observable parameters and the component space having a dimensionality less than the observable parameter dimensionality;
identify one or more components of the set of components that captures a total variance of the plurality of observable parameters above a predetermined threshold and that defines a reduced component space having a dimensionality less than the component space;
using at least the identified one or more components, construct a manifold that represents the normal performance of the electric submersible pump in the reduced component space;
receive data from one or more sensors, the data from the one or more sensors indicating the plurality of observable parameters for actual performance of the electric submersible pump;
transform the received data from the one or more sensors into the identified one or more components in the reduced component space to establish a representation of the actual performance of the electric submersible pump; and
detect a deviation in the actual performance of the electric submersible pump from the normal performance of the electric submersible pump by comparing at least one of the identified one or more components in the reduced component space that establish the representation of the actual performance of the electric submersible pump to the manifold in the reduced component space that represents the normal performance of the electric submersible pump.

14. The system of claim 13 where the identified one or more components comprise linear combinations of a least some of the plurality of observable parameters.

15. The system of claim 13 wherein the processor detects the deviation via a determination that the representation of the actual performance of the electric submersible pump belongs to the constructed manifold.

16. The system of claim 13 wherein the memory logs the data indicative of the observable parameters while the electric submersible pump is known to be in a normal mode of operation; wherein the processor experimentally defines a region that corresponds to the normal mode of operation of the electric submersible pump, wherein coordinates outside of the region indicate that the deviation in the actual performance exceeds a total variance represented by the manifold.

17. The system of claim 13 wherein the processor applies a statistical, hypothesis-testing approach to detect the deviation.

18. The system of claim 13 wherein the processor ranks the components in a decreasing order of their contribution to variance of the plurality of observable parameters and selects components until a sum of the variance of the selected components exceeds the predetermined threshold.

19. The system of claim 13 wherein the processor causes a d

Assignees

• Sensia Llc

Inventors

• Chugunov Nikita
• Verma Sandeep
• Bose Sandip

Classifications

• F04D13/10 Primary

  adapted for use in mining bore holes · CPC title

• E21B43/128

  Adaptation of pump systems with down-hole electric drives · CPC title

• F04D15/0088

  Testing machines · CPC title

• E21B47/0007 Primary

  Fixed Constructions · mapped topic

• F04D15/0077

  Safety measures (F04D15/02 takes precedence) · CPC title