Objective
The project aims to produces a multiphase flow meter for use in oil production lines. The flow meter will be applicable under a wide range of flow conditions and it will have low capital and maintenance cost as the proposed meter is based on an innovative turbulence signal analysis and classification technique which allows the use of simple pressure sensors. The flow meter will be capable of measuring individual phase flow rates of oil and gas with approx. 5% and water cut with approx. 2% accuracy.
The utilisation of the meter in oil production lines will remove the need to separate the fluids in expensive separator systems near the well head. The capability to meter multiphase fluids will allow lighter off-shore fluid handling platforms and structures and will achieve major cost savings for the oil producers.
The prospects of technical viability of the technology is very high. The technique has already undergone five years of laboratory development in an atmospheric flow loop at the Imperial College of Science and Technology. This was followed by an industrial development and testing programme of two years, during which a spool piece was constructed in accordance with oil pipeline safety requirements and subjected to tests in a high pressure laboratory. The prototype was constructed upon specification of Shell Expro (UK) Ltd for intended field trials on an oil platform. The economical viability of the technology is very promising due to the low cost of the sensors and other materials of construction. The principal component of the technique is its signal processing technology which is embodied in a software code.
We estimate that in "mass production", the unit cost of the flow meter will be around £25000. Compared with the cost of the prototype this represents a major cost saving. Savings of this magnitude will be achieved on two accounts. First, by reducing the calibration time and second by virtue of the low cost of replicating software. As software comprises the major component of the flow meter the replication cost of the flow meter is very economical.
There is a strong requirement in oil field production and reservoir manageemnt operations for metering flow rates of individual phases in unseparated streams. Multiphase flow rate measurements are required in well testing, production allocation and custody transfer operations. Multiphase flow meters with the right specification will eliminate the need for test separators and lines and will result in major improvements in production operations, reservoir management and the development of marginal sub-sea fields to high temperature and pressure conditions.
The proposed multiphase flow meter, the Expert System for Multiphase Flow Metering (ESMER) meets the requirements of the oil industry.
ESMER is a multiphase flow meter which is founded on signal processing, neural network and pattern recognition techniques. The meter high frequency signals emitted by pressure, capacitance and conductance sensors which mimic the fine scale fluid dynamic turbulence structures. the signals are sampled, digitised, analysed, running on PCs. ESMER has the capacity to identify the flow-rates of individual phases such as gas, oil and water in oil production lines from these signals.
ESMER delivers an economical and robust metering solution by eliminating the need for complex sensors. ESMER can provide the required metering accuracy from simple sensors by making maximum use of sophisticated numerical and software techniques. Traditional fluid metering solutions rely on average sensor signals. These form the input into a deterministic fluid mechanics model which provides the flow-rate as its output. Recently, with the advent of sensors such as ultrasonic, microwave, gamma-ray, laser Doppler, single phase fluid metering has moved towards a more direct measurement phase distribution model. Thus the distinctive feature of multiphase fluid meters which precede ESMER could be counted as reliance on average output of sensors and as reliance on fluid mechanics models.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering electronic engineering signal processing
- natural sciences physical sciences classical mechanics fluid mechanics fluid dynamics
- natural sciences computer and information sciences artificial intelligence expert systems
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering electronic engineering sensors
- natural sciences computer and information sciences artificial intelligence pattern recognition
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
SW7 2HF London
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.