| Sand production has always played an important role in the oil and gas industry. Sand production has always been a challenge in the petroleum industry. Intrusive and Non-Intrusive devices are used to measure sand production rate. Those devices alert when threshold limit of sand rate is reached, and some of them quantify sand production rates in grams per second. Unfortunately, they are not accurate and require in-field calibration. The research in calibrating sand production rate is based on case studies, and such case studies assumed the velocity of sand particles is the same as fluid flow through which sand is flowing. Unfortunately, inaccuracies result from this assumption. This thesis introduces an accurate non-intrusive design for sand production measurement by employing two Acoustic Emission sensors and one Ultrasonic Doppler sensor. Also, simulation results from COMSOL software, 2014 version were acquired and compared with experimental results.;In our design, two Acoustic Emission sensors were used in differential mode so that environmental noises could be canceled resulting in enhancement of measurement accuracy dramatically. Also, Ultrasonic Doppler sensor was used to measure the velocity of sand particles flowing along with the fluid inside a production pipe accurately and reliably. The results were taken for different sand particle sizes in order to observe the difference between the pre-amplified acoustic signals and effects on sand production rate. Our design study is readily applicable in petroleum industries to calibrate sand production rates and it optimizes oil and gas production. |
