Production of sand in gas wells is associated with various issues such as the erosion of pipes, disruption of the gas processing plant and reduced production capacity. Sand production can jeopardise the integrity of the pipes/equipment. Measuring the sand flow rate helps better sand control and management. Currently, there are many concerns about the accuracy of sand flow rate measurement using a commercial acoustic sand detector (ASD). This study suggests a relationship which substantially improves the accuracy of sand flow rate measurement using an ASD. This study also investigates using a simple ultrasonic sensor for sand flow rate measurement in which a fast Fourier transform (FFT) is used to convert data into the frequency domain. When a Savitzky–Golay filter is used on the FFT response, the smoothed output shows that there is a close relationship between the peak value of smoothed FFT signal in the 10–50 kHz frequency range, and the sand flow rate. This relationship provides a more accurate measurement of sand flow rate than is presently available using an ASD.

中文翻译：

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改进商用自动装瓶机的砂流量测量，并与超声光谱分析和过滤进行比较

气井中的沙子生产与各种问题有关，例如管道腐蚀，气体处理厂中断和生产能力下降。出砂会危害管道/设备的完整性。测量砂的流速有助于更好地控制和管理砂。当前，关于使用商业声沙检测器（ASD）的沙流量测量的准确性存在许多担忧。这项研究提出了一种关系，该关系可大大提高使用ASD进行砂粒流速测量的准确性。这项研究还研究了使用简单的超声波传感器测量沙子流量，其中使用快速傅里叶变换（FFT）将数据转换到频域。在FFT响应上使用Savitzky-Golay滤波器时，平滑输出表明，在10–50 kHz频率范围内，平滑FFT信号的峰值与砂流量之间存在密切关系。这种关系提供了比目前使用ASD更为精确的砂流率测量。