Experimental study of temperature change effect on distributed acoustic sensing continuous measurements

ABSTRACT Distributed fiber-optic sensing is useful in geophysical exploration and monitoring applications. Distributed temperature sensing (DTS) is used for measuring and monitoring temperature and distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) for recording the seismic wavefield. However, DAS measurements also are sensitive to temperature changes. To understand and quantify the DAS signature of temperature changes during water injections at CO2CRC Otway site, a series of experiments have been conducted at the Curtin University/National Geosequestration Laboratory (NGL) well research facility and Curtin rock-physics laboratory. Overall, three DAS cables are examined. Two fibers are tested in the laboratory and one cable, which is installed behind the casing in the Curtin/NGL well, is examined in the well. Laboratory measurements and observations made during analysis of passive DAS and DTS field data recorded in four Otway wells demonstrate that DAS is sensitive to long-period temperature changes, and its response is proportional to the time derivative of temperature. Induced fiber strain is linearly related to slow temperature change, and this dependency can be estimated for a particular cable. Obtained proportionality constants between strain and temperature change indicate some dependency on the cable type/design and acquisition setup, but they are all of the same order of magnitude. DAS measurements also can be affected by low-frequency noise possibly associated with the effect of temperature on the DAS acquisition unit itself. The results can help compensate for the effect of temperature on low-frequency DAS signals and show that DAS can be used as a distributed temperature sensor if direct temperature measurements are not available.