Systems and methods for surface detection of wellbore projectiles

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9587484-B2
Application number	US-201313873396-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 30, 2013
Priority date	Apr 30, 2013
Publication date	Mar 7, 2017
Grant date	Mar 7, 2017

Abstract

Disclosed are systems and methods for positively identifying wellbore projectiles introduced downhole. One well system includes at least one wellbore projectile configured to be introduced into a flow path associated with a work string arranged within a wellbore and extending from a wellhead installation, at least one optical computing device in optical communication with the flow path and having at least one integrated computational element configured to detect a characteristic of the at least one wellbore projectile and generate a resulting output signal indicative of the characteristic of the at least one wellbore projectile, and a computational system configured to receive the resulting output signal and associate the resulting output signal with a size or configuration of the at least one wellbore projectile.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A well system, comprising:
at least one wellbore projectile conveyable into a flow path defined by a work string arranged within a wellbore, wherein the at least one wellbore projectile is housed within a Christmas tree coupled to a wellhead and released into the flow path by actuating a valve of the Christmas tree;
at least one optical computing device positioned within the wellbore below the Christmas tree and coupled to the work string, the at least one optical computing device being in optical communication with the flow path and including:
an electromagnetic radiation source that emits electromagnetic radiation to optically interact with the at least one wellbore projectile and an integrated computational element and thereby generate modified electromagnetic radiation;
a first detector arranged to receive the modified electromagnetic radiation and generate an output signal corresponding to a characteristic of the at least one wellbore projectile;
a second detector arranged to detect radiating deviations of the electromagnetic radiation source and generate a compensating signal; and
a signal processor that receives and computationally combines the output and compensating signals to generate a resulting output signal; and

a computational system configured to receive the resulting output signal and associate the resulting output signal with a size or configuration of the at least one wellbore projectile.

2. The well system of claim 1 , wherein the wellbore projectile comprises at least one of a ball, a dart, a wiper, and a plug.

3. The well system of claim 1 , wherein the characteristic of the at least one wellbore projectile is at least one of a chemical composition, pH, density, ionic strength, porosity, opacity, bacteria content, color, emissivity, reflectivity, and speed of the at least one wellbore projectile.

4. The well system of claim 1 , wherein the characteristic of the at least one wellbore projectile corresponds to a colored substrate or a tracer substance applied to an outer region of the at least one wellbore projectile.

5. The well system of claim 4 , wherein the tracer substance is at least one of leachable small molecules or compounds, small molecules not native to subterranean formations, fluorophores, chromophores, radioisotopes, dissolvable materials and compounds, and combinations thereof.

6. The well system of claim 1 , wherein the characteristic of the at least one wellbore projectile corresponds to a predetermined or unique pattern, design, configuration, or number of colors and/or substrates applied to an outer region of the at least one wellbore projectile.

7. The well system of claim 1 , wherein the computational system comprises a memory configured to store the size or configuration of the at least one wellbore projectile.

8. The well system of claim 1 , wherein the characteristic consists of at least one of a plurality of colors and a plurality of substrates applied to an outer surface of the at least one wellbore projectile and the at least one integrated computational element comprises a corresponding plurality of integrated computational elements, and wherein each integrated computational element is configured to detect a corresponding one of the plurality of colors or plurality of substrates.

9. The well system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one optical computing device comprises at least first and second optical computing devices arranged in optical communication with the flow path, each of the first and second optical computing devices having at least one integrated computational element configured to detect the characteristic of the at least one wellbore projectile and generate a corresponding resulting output signal to be sent to the computational system.

10. A method of identifying a wellbore projectile, comprising:
actuating a valve of a Christmas tree that houses one or more wellbore projectiles and thereby introducing the one or more wellbore projectiles into a flow path associated with a work string arranged within a wellbore;
monitoring the flow path with an optical computing device positioned within the wellbore below the Christmas tree and coupled to the work string, wherein monitoring the flow path with the optical computing device includes:
optically interacting electromagnetic radiation emitted from an electromagnetic radiation source with the one or more wellbore projectiles and an integrated computational element and thereby generating modified electromagnetic radiation;
generating an output signal corresponding to a characteristic of the one or more wellbore projectiles with a first detector arranged to receive the modified electromagnetic radiation;
generating a compensating signal with a second detector arranged to detect radiating deviations of the electromagnetic radiation source; and
receiving and computationally combining the output and compensating signals with a signal processor and thereby generating a resulting output signal indicative of the characteristic of the one or more wellbore projectiles;

receiving the resulting output signal with a computational system; and
associating the resulting output signal with a size or configuration of the one or more wellbore projectiles.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the at least one integrated computational element comprises several integrated computational elements, the method further comprising:
optically interacting each of the several integrated computational elements with the one or more wellbore projectiles; and
detecting with each of the several integrated computational element the characteristic of the one or more wellbore projectiles.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the characteristic of the one or more wellbore projectiles is at least one of a chemical composition, pH, density, ionic strength, porosity, opacity, bacteria content, color, emissivity, reflectivity, and speed.

13. The method of claim 10 , wherein the characteristic of the one or more wellbore projectiles corresponds to a colored substrate or a tracer substance applied to the outer surface of the one or more wellbore projectile.

14. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
storing data corresponding to the size or configuration of each of the one or more wellbore projectiles in a memory arranged in the computational system; and
accessing the memory to associate the resulting output signal with the size or configuration corresponding to each of the one or more wellbore projectiles.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising informing a well operator of the size or configuration of the one or more wellbore projectiles.

16. The method of claim 10 , further comprising conveying an alert to a well operator when a wrong size or configuration of the one or more wellbore projectiles has been introduced into the flow path.

17. The method of claim 16 , further comprising undertaking one or more remedial operations to correct the wrong size or configuration of the one or more wellbore projectiles being introduced into the flow path.

18. The method of claim 10 , wherein monitoring the flow path with the optical computing device comprises:
monitoring the flow path with a first optical computing device and a second optical computing device, each of the first and second optical computing devices having at least one integrated computational element arranged therein;
optically interacting the at least one integrated computational element of each of the first and second optical computing devices with the one or more wellbore projecti

Assignees

• Halliburton Energy Services Inc

Inventors

• Walton Zachary W
• Fripp Michael

Classifications

• E21B47/09 Primary

  Locating or determining the position of objects in boreholes or wells {, e.g. the position of an extending arm}; Identifying the free or blocked portions of pipes · CPC title