Measuring the water content in the oil extracted from the wells has been one of the major concerns of the Petroleum industry. Existing sensors operate on either measuring conductivity or capacitance and hence could not detect water content for the entire range of 0-100% due to the phase inversion problem. Furthermore, they are bulky, heavyweight and are extremely expensive. IMPACT Lab has been funded by Aramco to develop new generation water cut sensors that can be deployed directly on pipes to measure water content for the complete range of water content. Our approach of impedance-based sensors is expected to alleviate the phase inversion problem.
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Electrical and Computer Engineering