Distributed optical fiber acoustic sensor for in situ monitoring of marine natural gas hydrates production for the first time in the Shenhu Area,China

The distributed acoustic sensor(DAS)uses a single optical cable as the sensing unit,which can capture the acoustic and vibration signals along the optical cable in real-time.So it is suitable for monitoring downhole production activities in the process of oil and gas development.The authors applied the DAS system in a gas production well in the South China Sea for in situ monitoring of the whole wellbore for the first time and obtained the distributed acoustic signals along the whole wellbore.These signals can clearly distinguish the vertical section,curve section,and horizontal production section.The collected acoustic signal with the frequency of approximately 50 Hz caused by the electric submersible pump exhibit a signal-to-noise ratio higher than 27 dB.By analyzing the acoustic signals in the production section,it can be located the layers with high gas production rates.Once an accurate physical model is built in the future,the gas production profile will be obtained.In addition,the DAS system can track the trajectory of downhole tools in the wellbore to guide the operation.Through the velocity analysis of the typical signals,the type of fluids in the wellbore can be distinguished.The successful application of the system provides a promising whole wellbore acoustic monitoring tool for the production of marine gas hydrate,with a good application prospect.

Review of Fiber-optic Distributed Acoustic Sensing Technology

A distributed optical-fiber acoustic sensor is an acoustic sensor that uses the optical fiber itself as a photosensitive medium,and is based on Rayleigh backscattering in an optical fiber.The sensor is widely used in the safety monitoring of oil and gas pipelines,the classification of weak acoustic signals,defense,seismic prospecting,and other fields.In the field of seismic prospecting,distributed optical-fiber acoustic sensing(DAS)will gradually replace the use of the traditional geophone.The present paper mainly expounds the recent application of DAS,and summarizes recent research achievements of DAS in resource exploration,intrusion monitoring,pattern recognition,and other fields and various DAS system structures.It is found that the high-sensitivity and long-distance sensing capabilities of DAS play a role in the extensive monitoring applications of DAS in engineering.The future application and development of DAS technology are examined,with the hope of promoting the wider application of the DAS technology,which benefits engineering and society.

A Dedicated MAC Protocol Package for Real-Time Ocean Current Field Estimation Using Distributed Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

Distributed underwater acoustic sensor networks(UASNs)are envisioned in real-time ocean current velocity estimation.However,UASNs at present are still dominated by post-processing partially due to the complexity of on-line detection for travel times and lack of dedicated medium access control(MAC)protocols.In this study,we propose a dedicated MAC protocol package for real-time ocean current velocity estimation using distributed UASNs.First,we introduce the process and requirements of ocean current velocity estimation.Then,we present a series of spatial reuse time division multiple access(TDMA)protocols for each phase of real-time ocean current field estimation using distributed UASNs,followed by numerical analysis.We divide UASNs into two categories according to their computing ability:feature-complete and feature-incomplete systems.The feature-complete systems that have abundant computing ability carry out the presented MAC protocol package in three phases,whereas the feature-incomplete ones do not have enough computing ability and the presented MAC protocol package is reduced to two phases plus an additional downloading phase.Numerical analysis shows that feature-complete systems using mini-slot TDMA have the best real-time performance,in comparison with feature-incomplete systems and other feature-complete counterparts.Feature-incomplete systems are more energy-saving than feature-complete ones,owing to the absence of in-network data exchange.