Baker Hughes Corporation

Paul J Seaton

Vladimir Dubinsky

John W Harrell

Macmillan M Wisler

James V Leggett, Iii

Andrew G Brooks

Larry Wayne Thompson

Roger P Herbert

William Thomas Balogh

A Measurement-while-Drilling method and apparatus for obtaining information about a formation uses sensors on substantially non-rotating pads attached to a rotating housing that is part of the drilling assembly. The pads make contact with the formation. The sensors may be density, NMR, resistivity, sonic or electromagnetic. The NMR sensors may use a static magnetic field that can be either radial or longitudinal in direction. The resistivity sensors may involve direct measurement of leakage current or may rely on induction methods. The sonic sensors may be three component transmitters and/or receivers for determining compressional and shear velocities of the formation and may also be used to image the formation in a VSP or a reverse VSP. In an alternate arrangement, the sensors rotate with the drill bit. A downhole microprocessor analyzes the data to improve signal-to-noise ratio and to reduce redundancy in the acquired data. Depth information may be telemetered from an uphole controller to facilitate the process. The downhole processor has adequate memory to store the processed data for subsequent retrieval when the well is being tripped. Alternatively, a subset of the stored data may be telemetered uphole during the drilling process.

Measurement-while-drilling devices with pad mounted sensors

The present invention provides a system for drilling boreholes having a downhole subassembly which contains an acoustic measurement-while-drilling system. The acoustic system contains an acoustic transmitter and receiver for determining the acoustic velocity through the formations surrounding the borehole ad an acoustic transmitter and a set of receivers for determining the bed boundaries surrounding the borehole formation utilizing the acoustic velocities measured by the system. The downhole subassembly also contains a computing system which performs computations downhole and transmits certain answers uphole during the drilling operations. The bed boundary information is utilized to drill the wellbore along a desired wellbore path. The downhole computing system correlates the acoustic sensor measurements with other measurement-while-drilling measurements and transmits selected correlated information uphole. The downhole computing system contains predetermined well profile which is updated based on the bed boundary information. The system may be adapted to correct or update seismic data and offset well data based on acoustic sensor system measurements.

Drilling system with an acoustic measurement-while-driving system for

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The Woodlands, TX, United States of America

Paul J Seaton