Experimental Investigation of Distributed Acoustic Fiber-Optic Sensing in Production Logging: Thermal Slug Tracking and Multiphase Flow Characterization
Authors: Titov Aleksei , Fan Yilin , Jin Ge , Tura Ali , Kutun Kagan , Miskimins Jennifer 
Published: October 2020

This work experimentally investigates the impact of gas bubbles on the thermal and acoustic energy prorogation within the wellbore, at various water and air flow rates using Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS). This is the first study that experimentally investigates the thermal and acoustic propagation at both single and two-phase flow conditions using DAS. Our results will improve the production logging algorithms especially at multiphase flow conditions, benefit the detection of gas leakage in the vertical section of a wellbore, as well as pipeline flow monitoring. Distributed Fiber-Optic Sensing (DFOS) based production logging has drawn much attention in recent years. Comparing to conventional production logging tools, fiber-optic cables can endure much harsher borehole environments and can be deployed at a lower cost. This work presents an experimental study of using DAS to track the thermal slugging in single-phase (liquid) and two-phase (gas and liquid) flow within a vertical wellbore to estimate flow velocity and characterize multiphase flow behavior.

A vertical flow loop is constructed for this research, which consists of a 7-m long transparent polyvinyl chloride (PVC) test section with a 1-inch pipe inner diameter. A single-mode optic fiber with thin plastic coating is wrapped evenly around the PVC pipe, with a fiber-to-pipe length ratio of 10.7. Tap water and compressed air are used as the testing fluids. The water and air are injected at the bottom of the test section, similar to field conditions where oil and gas mixture flows into the wellbore from the bottom. The water is directly supplied from the building water system without using an additional pump to minimize the unrelated acoustic noise. Air is supplied from an air tank charged by the building compressor with a maximum pressure of 80 psi. A peristaltic pump is used to inject a small amount of hot water (&lt; 2% of the minimum water volume from the inlet) to generate thermal slugs at the bottom of the test section.

For the case of single-phase water flow, the velocity of the thermal slugging signal is similar to the actual water velocity, as expected. For multiphase flow, the thermal signal looks almost identical with that for single-phase, although the bubble velocity is much higher than the water velocity. This observation indicates that gas, with low thermal capacity and in its bubble form, cannot carry enough heat to perturb the thermal slugs in the water severely. However, a detailed analysis of the thermal slugging velocity indicates a small increase with an increase of air flow rate. We interpret that the thermal slugging velocity is associated with the actual water velocity. The existence of the gas bubble decreases the effective water holdup (cross-sectional area occupied by the water phase) in the pipe. We find that, with a constant water volumetric rate, smaller holdup leads to higher in-situ water velocity, thus higher thermal slugging velocity.

The decay of the thermal slugging signal is also analyzed. The signal decay is due to the heat exchange between the fluid and the surrounding, as well as between the warmer and cooler fluid within the pipe. We observe a faster signal decay associated with a higher bubble rate, which indicates a faster heat exchange rate with the existence of gas bubbles. Multiple physical processes may cause this correlation. First, as the gas bubbles travel through the water with a higher velocity, they generate local turbulence in the water phase and accelerate the heat exchange within the water. Another possibility is that the gas, although with much smaller thermal capacity, carries heat from the warmer section to the cooler section, therefore accelerating the thermal equilibrium process. The comparison between the single-phase water and two-phase air-water experimental results indicate that the gas bubbles generate acoustic energy as they move through the pipe. Even in the low-frequency DAS data band (&lt;0.5 Hz), it appears that the higher background noise-level is associated with the rising bubbles. Detailed analysis of the DAS data indicates individual bubbles can be traceable if they are separated more than a gauge length.