A new wireline 2-in-1 inflatable-packer system for aquifer characterization

The application of inflatable-packer testing is commonly used in all sorts of geotechnical investigations. During the test, a frequently ignored problem is the unforeseen occurrence of leakage around the packers, which leads to a high risk to wellbore failure as well as equipment stuck. For the conventional design, once one of the two packer subjects to leakage, the field test would have to be immediately terminated. To cope with such problem, as proposed in this study, a modification of the pneumatic control device towards a 2-in-1 inflatable-packer system accompanying with the stratified analysis of hydrostatic pressure is required. The key idea is to let each packer element to be inflated separately and individually, as such their pneumatic responses can be fed to different control valves for diverse control tasks, of which the most crucial one is the in-situ conversion between single and double packer testing mode.YY

Automated summary

Inflatable-packer testing is commonly used in geotechnical investigations, but the issue of leakage around the packers can lead to wellbore failure and equipment stuck. To address this problem, modifying the pneumatic control device to a 2-in-1 inflatable-packer system and conducting stratified analysis of hydrostatic pressure is necessary. This allows for separate inflation of each packer element and diverse control tasks, including in-situ conversion between single and double packer testing modes.