Measurement While Drilling, 2nd Edition

Chapter 14Gyrodata MWD Research

Gyrodata is an independent service provider delivering precision wellbore placement and evaluation solutions for drilling, completions and production challenges. For four decades, it has partnered with leading organizations to develop innovative wellbore surveying technologies to support the most complex oil and gas, unconventional resources, civil engineering and mining projects around the world. Gyrodata’s services provide real-time data using Measurement While Drilling tools. With a broad base of operational and field experience, the company is familiar with the problems and challenges confronting the industry – low data rate, high power consumption and rapid erosion. Well planned facilities support a high degree of integration between field work, problem identification, wind tunnel evaluation, mechanical design and prototype manufacturing, enabling rapid advances to be made. Its approaches are second to none. For example, erosion is studied and corrected in wind tunnel studies, with flow visualization employing neutrally buoyant helium filled soap bubbles whose interactions with solid surfaces are captured by high speed movie cameras. Such experiments are archived and can be viewed by engineering staff worldwide. Short and long wind tunnels are available to study properties like signal strength, torque and erosion, plus broader telemetry issues in signal processing and noise cancellation. The following photographs provide a flavor of the environment ...