Collar Mode Wave Attenuation in Characteristics Acoustic Logging While Drilling and Isolator Design

Abstract Radially polarized open-cylindrical piezoelectric transducers are widely used in the field of acoustic logging while drilling (LWD). Unlike the wireline logging transducer, the structure of the acoustic LWD transducer is an open structure; in this case, its radial vibration is accompanied by apparent circumferential vibration. In this paper, based on the two-dimensional wave equations and electrostatic charge equation, according to the free boundary conditions of the transducer, the resonance frequency equation of radial-circumferential coupled vibration for the acoustic LWD transducer is obtained. The vibration modal and resonance frequency for transducers of several typical sizes are simulated using COMSOL software. The results show that when the geometrical size of the transducer satisfies certain conditions, the theoretical calculation and the numerical analysis are in good agreement and the relative error is controlled below 3%. Meanwhile, the horizontal directivity of the LWD transducer after actual installation is discussed, and it is found that adding appropriate coupling materials can improve the monopole sound field radiation. So, it is expected that this work can serve as a reference for the acoustic LWD transducer design and install.

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Measurement of the shear slowness of slow formations from monopole logging-while-drilling sonic logs

Geophysics ◽

10.1190/geo2019-0236.1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 85 (1) ◽

pp. D45-D52

Author(s):

Yuanda Su ◽

Xinding Fang ◽

Xiaoming Tang

Keyword(s):

Numerical Modeling ◽

Wave Velocity ◽

Fluid Velocity ◽

S Wave ◽

Data Set ◽

Acoustic Logging ◽

Wave Velocities ◽

Logging While Drilling ◽

Sonic Logs ◽

Refracted Waves

Acoustic logging-while-drilling (LWD) is used to measure formation velocity/slowness during drilling. In a fast formation, in which the S-wave velocity is higher than the borehole-fluid velocity, monopole logging can be used to obtain P- and S-wave velocities by measuring the corresponding refracted waves. In a slow formation, in which the S-wave velocity is less than the borehole-fluid velocity, because the fully refracted S-wave is missing, quadrupole logging has been developed and used for S-wave slowness measurement. A recent study based on numerical modeling implies that monopole LWD can generate a detectable transmitted S-wave in a slow formation. This nondispersive transmitted S-wave propagates at the formation S-wave velocity and thus can be used for measuring the S-wave slowness of a slow formation. We evaluate a field example to demonstrate the applicability of monopole LWD in determining the S-wave slowness of slow formations. We compare the S-wave slowness extracted from a monopole LWD data set acquired in a slow formation and the result derived from the quadrupole data recorded in the same logging run. The results indicated that the S-wave slowness can be reliably determined from monopole LWD sonic data in fairly slow formations. However, we found that the monopole approach is not applicable to very slow formations because the transmitted S-wave becomes too weak to detect when the formation S-wave slowness is much higher than the borehole-fluid slowness.

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