Methods, systems, and apparatuses are provided for detecting and determining conditions of and conditions within a fluid conduit.

An ultrasonic flowmeter (USM) includes a meter body including a pipe section for flowing a fluid therethrough including a first and second ultrasonic transducer, top-works including a housing and a PCB, a controller coupled to the ultrasonic transducers through a transmitter and/or receiver, and an accelerometer and/or an acoustic sensor for sensing a vibration on the pipe section and for providing an output signal coupled to the controller. The electronics are communicatively coupled to the meter body and the housing is mechanically coupled to the meter body. The controller analyzes the output signal to identify ≥1 vibration frequency and compares the vibration frequency to a predetermined sensitive frequency range for the USM. When the vibration frequency is determined to be within the predetermined frequency range, the controller implements an anti-vibration operating mode by increasing a measurement time when measuring the fluid flow and/or adding additional data processing task(s).

A peristaltic pump and related-method are disclosed that includes a cam shaft having a plunger cam, a plunger-cam follower that engages the plunger cam of the cam shaft, a tube receiver, a spring, a plunger, a position sensor, and a processor. The tube receiver receives a tube. The spring provides a bias. The plunger is biased toward the tube by the spring and the plunger is to the plunger-cam follower, such that expansion of the plunger cam along a radial angle intersecting the plunger-cam follower as the cam shaft rotates actuates the plunger away from the tube. The position sensor determines a position of the plunger and the processor estimates fluid flow within the tube utilizing the position of the plunger.

An ultrasonic flowmeter (USM) includes a meter body including a pipe section for flowing a fluid therethrough including a first and second ultrasonic transducer, top-works including a housing and a PCB, a controller coupled to the ultrasonic transducers through a transmitter and/or receiver, and an accelerometer and/or an acoustic sensor for sensing a vibration on the pipe section and for providing an output signal coupled to the controller. The electronics are communicatively coupled to the meter body and the housing is mechanically coupled to the meter body. The controller analyzes the output signal to identify ≥1 vibration frequency and compares the vibration frequency to a predetermined sensitive frequency range for the USM. When the vibration frequency is determined to be within the predetermined frequency range, the controller implements an anti-vibration operating mode by increasing a measurement time when measuring the fluid flow and/or adding additional data processing task(s).

A peristaltic pump, and related system method are provided. The peristaltic pump includes a cam shaft, first and second pinch-valve cams, first and second pinch-valve cam followers, a plunger cam, a plunger-cam follower, a tube receiver, and a spring-biased plunger. The first and second pinch-valve cams are coupled to the cam shaft. The first and second pinch-valve cam followers each engage the first and second pinch-valve cams, respectively. The plunger cam is coupled to the cam shaft. The plunger-cam follower engages the plunger cam. The tube receiver is configured to receive a tube. The spring-biased plunger is coupled to the plunger-cam follower such that the expansion of the plunger cam along a radial angle intersecting the plunger-cam follower as the cam shaft rotates pushes the plunger cam follower towards the plunger and thereby disengages the spring-biased plunger from the tube. A spring coupled to the spring-biased plunger biases the spring-biased plunger to apply the crushing force to the tube.

The present invention provides techniques for recovering hydrocarbon fluids in a process flow, including recovering bitumen from a coarse tailings line. The apparatus includes a signal processor that responds to signaling containing information about the presence of a hydrocarbon fluid in a process flow; and determines corresponding signaling to control the diversion of the hydrocarbon fluid from the process flow remaining based on the signaling received. The hydrocarbon fluid may be bitumen, including bitumen flowing in a course tailings line. The signal processor receives the signaling from a velocity profile meter having sensors arranged around a circumference of a process pipe containing information about a fluid flow velocity at various levels or heights within the process pipe, including a wrap-around velocity profile meter having multiple sensing arrays located radially at a top position of 0°, a bottom position of 180°, and intermediate positions 45°, 90° and 135°.

A wireless flow rate apparatus measures flow rate in a fluid-conductive conduit and includes: the fluid conductive conduit comprising a non-rigid wall; a wireless sensor network including a flow sensor that detects vibrations of the fluid-conductive conduit, produces a sensor signal; and a wireless node that receives the sensor signal and wirelessly communicates the sensor signal; a base station that wirelessly receives the sensor signal; and a flow rate analyzer that receives the sensor signal from the base station and determines the flow rate of fluid in the fluid-conductive conduit from the sensor signal.

A system can determine multi-phase measurements with respect to a wellbore. The system can include a set of acoustic devices, a measurement device, and a computing device. The set of acoustic devices can be positioned at the surface of a wellbore to generate acoustic signals proportional to flow of fluid with respect to the wellbore. The measurement device can be positioned with respect to the set of acoustic devices to sense the acoustic signals. The computing device can be communicatively coupled to the measurement device to interpret the acoustic signals for determining a type of the fluid and a ratio of one or more phases of the fluid.

The present invention provides novel apparatus and methods for fast quantitative measurement of perturbation of optical fields transmitted, reflected and/or scattered along a length of an optical fibre. The present invention can be used for point sensors as well as distributed sensors or the combination of both. In particular this technique can be applied to distributed sensors while extending dramatically the speed and sensitivity to allow the detection of acoustic perturbations anywhere along a length of an optical fibre while achieving fine spatial resolution. The present invention offers unique advantages in a broad range of acoustic sensing and imaging applications. Typical uses are for monitoring oil and gas wells such as for distributed flow metering and/or imaging, seismic imaging, monitoring long cables and pipelines, imaging within large vessel as well as for security applications.

Methods, systems, and apparatuses are provided for detecting and determining conditions of and conditions within a fluid conduit.