Automated Well Development

Overview

Once a well has been drilled, if its purpose is to be a source of water supply, than the process of developing the well must be completed before the well can be commissioned. Due to the drilling process, there is commonly a large volume of sand and silt that needs to be cleared out before the water is able to go to a treatment plant because the plant (in most cases) does not have the capability of removing the large volumes of sand and silt. To remove these particulates, the process of developing the well using an air system and later a pump to push out large volumes of water must be completed. Tests frequently record data relating to the sand content and silt density to validate when development can be completed. The automated development tester is the first step to making a well development site fully autonomous. Its job is to run a specific test used to record sand content, automated.

Stage 1

Stage 1 consists of a PID control that monitors and adjusts flowrate. Its job is to control the flow rate within a specific preset tolerance for a specific amount of time before closing the system. It adjusts the flow rate by using a flow sensor and a self developed automated servo motor controlled valve. This stage it is critical that the flow rate has minimal error to ensure the the next stage will have accurate data. A centrifugal water / solid separator is used to separate sand and water coming out of the well, with the sand content being collected into a test tube.

Stage 2

Stage 2 starts once the timed test is completed. This stage uses a motor connected to a linear actuator to rotate a turret that houses the test tubes from one location to the next. The second location it will go to will allow for a sensitive self made touch probe to touch off inside the beaker to determine the height of the sand. The system can then correlate the height measurement to a volume of sand.

Electronics

The electronics of the automated development tester starts with a test PCB board that will allow for all the connections of sensors, actuators, and controls, and display. Once this is completed a ESP32 driven PLC controller can be used as the final controller. The PLC controller will give the the system a rugged computer controller.

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