Abstract: A method and apparatus, for deploying a sensor attached to tubing in a highly deviated or horizontal wellbore, that are characterized by a stationary attachment system that securely fixes a sensor to a tubing string such that the sensor is coupled to the casing regardless of the orientation of the tubing within the wellbore. One preferred embodiment includes a clamp assembly that encloses the sensor and clamps around the cubing string. The clamp assembly further includes a plurality of contact members that provide stable contact points between the well casing and the clamp assembly. The embodiments of the present invention act to maintain the sensor in a stable coupling with the casing without any actuation required for installation.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus deploy a sensor attached to tubing in a highly deviated or horizontal wellbore. In general the preferred embodiments are characterized by a stationary attachment system that securely fixes a sensor to a tubing string such that the sensor is coupled to the casing regardless of the orientation of the tubing within the wellbore. One preferred embodiment includes a clamp assembly that encloses the sensor and clamps around the tubing string. The clamp assembly further includes a plurality of contact members that provide stable contact points between the well casing and the clamp assembly. The embodiments of the present invention act to maintain the sensor in a stable coupling with the casing without any actuation required for installation.

Abstract: A standoff compensation system is disclosed for use in an acoustic LWD system. An acoustic transducer is provided to measure the standoff distance between the logging tool and the borehole wall. The present invention includes a downhole processor for determining an index value which is used to align received acoustic formation signal measurements based upon the measured standoff distance. The index value can either be calculated by the downhole processor or can be retrieved from a pre-calculated look-up table in ROM. The processor then shifts the received acoustic formation signals based upon the index value assigned to each formation signal. The aligned acoustic formation signals are stacked, so that a single acoustic formation signal can be obtained for each firing period and either stored in downhole memory, used immediately, or transmitted by telemetry to the surface. The firing of the acoustic formation transmitters occurs in a rapid firing mode, followed by a relatively long idle.

Abstract: A LWD tool is disclosed for detecting the existence of and distance to adjacent bed boundaries. A transmitter assembly generates either a short acoustic pulse or a swept frequency signal that is detected by an associated receiver assembly. The received signal(s) are conditioned and converted to high precision digital signals by an A/D converter. The digitized signals are accumulated and transferred to a digital signal processor via a high speed data bus. The digital signal processor also receives a digital signal representing the transmission signal and compares the transmission signal and the received signals together to enable a downhole microprocessor to derive a time lag for the received signals.