Dynamic liquid level detection method based on resonant frequency difference for oil wells

Authors: WEI ZHOU, JUAN LIU, LIQUN GAN

Abstract: The dynamic liquid level of an oil well can be used to determine the oil production strategies and analyze the reservoir performance. Therefore, it is important to measure the dynamic liquid level in an oil field. This paper proposes a novel dynamic liquid level measurement method for oil wells, where the resonant frequency difference (RFD) of the resonant acoustic signal in annular is used to calculate the dynamic liquid level. To solve the noise interference problem in the resonant acoustic signal, a spectral fast Fourier transform (FFT) method based on Welch power spectrum is proposed to obtain the RFD. First, the Welch power spectrum approach is employed to process the resonant acoustic signal, and a high-pass filter is designed to filter the inherent envelope of low frequency in the power spectrum. In particular, a clear and smooth power spectrum can be obtained by choosing a suitable window and a sectional length. Furthermore, the short-time Fourier transform method is used to extract the strongest energy spectrum of the power spectrum. Finally, the RFD of two adjacent resonant harmonics can be accurately obtained by using FFT for the strongest energy spectrum. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Keywords: Dynamic liquid level, resonant frequency difference, Welch power spectrum, fast Fourier transform, filter

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