Patent application number | Description | Published |
20130153241 | BLOW OUT PREVENTER (BOP) CORROBORATOR - Systems and methods supplementing existing management methods to corroborate performance of a blow out preventer for a submerged well. The corroborator is located on the blow out preventer and includes a flow meter external to a pipe to measure flow inside the pipe, a pipe joint locator, a ram seal confirmation agent and a dedicated communication connection from the corroborator to a computer topside. Data from at least one sensor topside, which may represent a mud tank level, is also received. The computer calculates a probability that a malfunction related to the well occurs. The computer implements a Principal Component Analysis model of the well based on historical data, to assess a likelihood that a threshold value will be surpassed based on collected sensor data and to generate an alert. | 06-20-2013 |
20130255937 | HIGH SPEED CEMENT BOND LOGGING AND INTERACTIVE TARGETED INTERVENTION - A method for cement bond logging and targeted intervention, including lowering a cylindrical n×m array of ultrasound (US) transducers into a well, firing the US transducers to transmit US signals into a well casing, converting reflected US signals received by the transducers into electronic form and transmit the converted signals to a control unit, analyzing the converted signals to detect holidays, if a holiday is detected, determining a position and angle of the holiday with respect to the transducers, and applying a high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) signal to the well casing to fill the holiday. | 10-03-2013 |
20130298937 | HIGH INTENSITY ULTRASOUND FOR PIPELINE OBSTRUCTION REMEDIATION - High intensity ultrasound is used for pipeline obstruction remediation. Ultrasound transducers are positioned around an outside of the pipeline. The transducers transmit acoustic energy into the obstruction. The acoustic energy heats the obstruction at a location spaced away from the walls of the pipeline. As the obstruction heats, an opening may be formed in the obstruction, relieving pressure build-up without releasing the plug. | 11-14-2013 |
20130333896 | APPLICATION OF HIGH INTENSITY FOCUSED ULTRASOUND TO THE DISPLACEMENT OF DRILLING MUD - A method for disrupting an obstruction from a wellbore includes determining a location of an obstruction within a wellbore. An ultrasound transducer is deployed down an interior of a casing in the wellbore. Ultrasound energy is focused, using the ultrasound transducer, to the determined location of the obstruction and the obstruction is disrupted using the focused ultrasound energy. | 12-19-2013 |
20140009598 | Pipeline Inspection Piglets - For pipeline inspection, a small, untethered capsule (a “piglet”) images from within a pipeline. The capsule is small enough that rotation about any of three orthogonal axes while within the pipeline is possible. Movement both along the pipeline and perpendicular to the longitudinal axis is possible. To assure images of the pipeline without viewing gaps, the field of view for imaging surrounds the capsule without a gap. Given the possible rotation and translation, the captured images may be motion compensated to provide oriented images of a length of the pipeline. | 01-09-2014 |
20140015944 | PART NUMBER RECOVERY SYSTEM - A system for imaging characters on a surface of an object through a coating on the object includes one or more infrared (IR) radiation sources disposed to irradiate IR radiation upon a object, an IR camera disposed to received IR radiation reflected from the surface of the object, the IR camera adapted to create a digital image of the surface of the object from the received IR radiation, and a computing device in signal communication with the IR camera adapted to receive the digital image of the surface of the object from the IR camera, in which the computing device has installed therein optical character recognition (OCR) software adapted to detecting and recognizing characters imprinted upon the surface of the object. | 01-16-2014 |
20140043492 | Multi-Light Source Imaging For Hand Held Devices - Systems and methods are provided to record at least a first and a second image of a marking on a surface of an object with a mobile computing device including a processor, a display and a camera with a lens. The lens and the display are located at the same side of the body of the computing device. The first image is taken with a first part of the display illuminating the object and the second image is taken with a second part of the display illuminating the object illuminating the object from different directions. Different illumination directions provide different shadow effects related to ridges and grooves on the surface. Processing the images which are substantially registered allows extraction of markings created by ridges and or grooves on the surface of the object. Computer tablets and smart phones perform the steps of the present invention. | 02-13-2014 |
20140060580 | HIGH INTENSITY ULTRASOUND FOR PIPELINE OBSTRUCTION REMEDIATION - High intensity ultrasound is used for pipeline obstruction remediation. Ultrasound transducers are positioned around an outside of the pipeline. The transducers transmit acoustic energy into the obstruction. The acoustic energy heats the obstruction at a location spaced away from the walls of the pipeline. As the obstruction heats, an opening may be formed in the obstruction, relieving pressure build-up without releasing the plug. | 03-06-2014 |
20140321240 | ELASTOGRAPHY FOR CEMENT INTEGRITY INSPECTION - A method for examining integrity of cement in a wellbore includes deploying an ultrasound transducer within a wellbore. One or more reference ultrasound images of the cement within the wellbore are acquired. A pushing pulse is emitted from the ultrasound transducer to elicit a displacement of the cement within the wellbore. A sequence of ultrasound images is acquired, over time, depicting the displacement of the cement within the wellbore elicited by the pushing pulse. A strain tensor map is generated from a difference between the one or more reference ultrasound images and the acquired sequence of ultrasound images. A degree of integrity of the cement within the wellbore is determined based on the generated strain tensor map. | 10-30-2014 |