Moling system including transmitter-carrying mole for detecting and displaying the roll angle of the mole

• US 5,182,516 A
• Filed: 01/23/1991
• Issued: 01/26/1993
• Est. Priority Date: 06/09/1989
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Advantica Intellectual Property Limited
• Original Assignee: British Gas Trading Limited (Centrica PLC)
• Inventors: Ward, Peter, Glen, Stephen J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Snow, Walter E.
• Application Number:
  US07/640,292
• Time in Patent Office: 734 Days
• Field of Search: 324/326, 175/19, 175/45, 166/250
• US Class Current: 324/326
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 47/024 of devices in the borehole determining slope or direction of the borehole E21B47/022
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 47/13 by electromagnetic energy, e.g. radio frequency
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 7/068 drilled by a down-hole drilling motor down-hole drives per se E21B4/00, E21B7/067 takes precedence

Abstract

A moling system comprises a mole (10) having a head (26) with a slant face at the leading end of a string of hollow rods (20). The rods are rotatable by a rig (12). The mole is an impact mole fed by air passed through the rods. While the mole rotates it travels approximately straight, but nonrotating it travels according to the direction of the slant face (28). The mole contains a radio sonde having one coil lying lengthwise and one transverse to the lengthwise direction of the mole. A receiver (22) is traversed across the ground to locate the radio sonde and display roll angle. The mole is stopped from rotating at the correct position when steering is required and powered without rotating to change course. An impact activated switch in the mole switches off the battery supply while the impact mechanism is activated.

Claims

1. A molding system which is capable of giving an indication of mole location and depth comprising a rotatable mole the roll angle of which is required to be known, a radio sonde in the mole having a first transmit coil lying parallel to the lengthwise direction of the mole and a second transmit coil lying transverse to said direction, means indicating a battery and an oscillator for energising the transmit coils with alternating current with a phase difference between the coils, a receiver traversable above ground into a position in which the receiver can give an indication of the roll angle of the mole, and display means, associated with said receiver and located above ground, for displaying said roll angle.

2. A system according to claim 1, wherein said mole includes a part which is magnetically actuated and which thus can interfere with the radiated magnetic field produced by said transmit coils the sonde being located in said magnetically active part of the mole.

3. A system according to claim 2, the sonde being located in a recess in a mole head of toughened steel, the dimensions of the recess being optimised to reduce interference with the radiated magnetic field so that roll angle can be measured to an accuracy of better than plus or minus 10°

over a range of 350°

.

4. A system according to claim 1, the mole being of 50 millimeters in diameter.

5. A system according to claim 1, wherein the first and second coils are energised by a single frequency, the energising voltages to the two coils having a phase difference between them and the radiated field from the coils being used for location and measurement of roll angle and depth.

6. A system according to claim 1, wherein the first and second coils are energised by a single frequency, the energising voltages to the two coils having a phase difference between them and the radiated field from the coils being used for roll angle measurement only, and the coil lying parallel to the lengthwise direction of the mole being additionally energised with a second frequency and the resulting radiated field being used for location and depth measurement.

7. A system according to claim 1, the radio sonde having a further transmit coil lying parallel to the lengthwise direction of the mole, the first transmit coil being energised by a first frequency and the resulting radiated field being used for location and depth measurement, and the further and the second transmit coils being energised by a second frequency, the energising voltage to the further and second coils having a phase difference between them and the resultant radiated field being used for roll angle measurement only.

8. A system according to claim 1, the receiver comprising a horizontal phase-reference receive coil and one other receive coil transverse to said phase-reference coil, which receiver is traversable above ground until said phase-reference receive coil is directly above the sonde and parallel to said first transmit coil, the receiver further comprising first means for measuring the variations of the amplitude of the signal from said other receive coil as the mole rotates, a second means for displaying the amplitude variations as an indication of roll angle, and a third means for detecting the phase reversal which occurs in the signal from the transverse receive coil as the mole rotates.

9. A system according to claim 1, the receiver comprising a horizontal phase-reference receive coil and two roll-angle receive coils transverse to each other and to said horizontal phase-reference receive coil, which receiver is traversable above ground until said phase-reference receive coil is directly above the sonde and parallel to said first transmit coil, a digital display on which roll-angle is displayed, a resolver/converter which receives outputs from all three coils, a fourth means for combining the output from the two roll angle receive coils, a fifth means for demodulating the combined signal using the signal from the horizontal phase-reference coil as a reference signal, and a sixth means of converting the demodulated signal into a digital signal for transfer to the display.

10. A system according to claim 1, the mole being impact driven.

11. A system according to claim 10, the sonde having an impact-activated switch which conserves battery power by switching off the sonde when measurements are not required by sensing the shock forces generated by the action of the impact driven mole then switching off the sonde while the mole is impacting, switching on when the mole stops impacting for a predetermined period during which measurements can be made and then automatically switching off again.

12. A system according to claim 1, the sonde being activatable in response to energisation of a radio transmitter at the ground surface.

13. A system according to claim 1, the same receiver being used to locate the position of the mole as viewed in plan and the depth of the mole.