Piezotech LLC

Pat Gwin

Frans Lautzenhiser

Mahesh Matam

A single critically damped acoustic stack yields a wide frequency range as an acoustic transmitter or as an acoustic transducer having particular use in well integrity determination. The critically damped present acoustic stack utilizes a plurality of stacked acoustic elements such as piezoelectric ceramics that are energized in two manners, providing different center frequencies; each producing a respective center frequency of 100% bandwidth to yield an acoustic stack having a total bandwidth exceeding the bandwidth of an acoustic element or the bandwidth of the plurality of acoustic elements. One manner of energizing is to pulse only one of the acoustic elements. The other manner is to pulse a first acoustic element the pulse a second acoustic element after a delay equal to the amount of time it takes for the first pulse to reach the face of the second acoustic element. The acoustic elements are bonded together and onto a critically damped backing of tungsten. The assembly is retained in a housing that is preferably made of PEEK. The acoustic stack is primarily used in pulse-echo analysis of metal casing wall thickness and cement bond quality detection of wells.

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Indianapolis, IN, United States of America

Pat Gwin