ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 2 -- United States Patent no. 12,487,205, issued on Dec. 2, was assigned to Chevron U.S.A. Inc. (San Ramon, Calif.).
"Acoustic sand monitor" was invented by Lee David Rhyne (Cypress, Texas), Peter Crowder (Houston) and Hariprasad Janakiram Subramani (Houston).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An acoustic sand monitor system includes an exciter assembly and a receiver that are configured to be coupled to an accumulator vessel. Separating equipment separates sand from a fluid stream produced by a well. The accumulator vessel collects the sand separated from the fluid stream. The exciter assembly causes vibrations of the accumulator vessel and the receiver measures audio signal...