Downhole fiber-optic sensing focus of Halliburton's Pinnacle Applied Photonics Center

Feb. 27, 2013

Houston, TX--Halliburton showed off its Applied Photonics Center that offers fiber-optic manufacturing, testing, and R&D for real-time, downhole sensing/monitoring applications.

Gail Overton

Halliburton’s Pinnacle Applied Photonics Center focuses on optical-fiber-based downhole sensing and monitoring applications.

Houston, TX--A World Oil News Center story from John Betz describes Halliburton's Pinnacle Applied Photonics Center. Betz writes:

Halliburton showed off its recently integrated Applied Photonics Center in north Houston via a media tour. The Applied Photonics Center offers, under one roof, fiber-optic manufacturing, testing and R&D capabilities to develop new solutions for real-time, downhole logging and monitoring (http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/print/volume-47/issue-4/features/photonics-applied-optical-sensing-downhole-sensing-puts-fiber-optics-to-the-test.html) applications.

Pinnacle's photonics center is focused on both single point and distributed sensor technologies (http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/2013/01/fiber-optic-sensing-distributed-fiber-optic-sensing-solves-real-world-problems.html). The facility includes a light and acoustics laboratory, fiber splicing equipment and a system assembly department. The high-technology equipment includes a special, high-powered laser that welds (http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/print/volume-48/issue-09/features/successful-laser-welding-demands-optimized-laser-joint-design.html) sensor pieces together, with a stronger bond than conventional welding.

"The photonics center was formed to leverage the many benefits that fiber optics have over traditional electronic instruments," said Karl Blanchard, Vice President for Production Enhancement. "In this multi-use facility, Halliburton is focused on a range of related disciplines from pure research for advancing the science of photonic sensing to engineering and packaging commercial solutions that our clients use to derive new value from their fields."

Specific fiber-optics measurements include distributed temperature sensing (DTS) for downhole temperature profiling, distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) for vertical seismic profiling and distributed strain sensing (DSS) for pressure measurements. These systems can be used for applications such as stimulation monitoring.

Read the rest of the story here.

SOURCE: World Oil News Center; http://www.worldoil.com/Halliburton_showcases_new_Pinnacle_Applied_Photonics_facility.html

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.