Sensors and Actuators A 125 (2006) 133142

Determination of water content and salinity from a producing oil well

using CPW probe and eigendecomposition
A.M.O. Mohamed a, , M. Elgamal a , R.A. Said b
a

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UAE University, P.O. Box 17555, Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
b Department of Electrical Engineering, UAE University, P.O. Box 17555, Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Received 28 February 2005; received in revised form 5 June 2005; accepted 5 June 2005
Available online 1 September 2005

Abstract
The main aim of this study is to demonstrate the ability to determine the water content and salinity of a producing oil well by analyzing
captured time domain transmissometry (TDT) pulse signals by the newly developed coplanar waveguide (CPW) probe using eigendecomposition technique. The proposed technique characterizes the captured signatures by a number of eigenvalues calculated by autoregressive
modeling and singular value decomposition methods. To demonstrate the proposed method of analysis, crude oil samples obtained from Al
Bab oil reservoir, Abu Dhabi Emirate, UAE, were used. The physicochemical properties were first determined as functions of formation water
content and salinity and then samples were prepared for their use with the CPW probe for signal detection in the TDT mode of operation.
Transmitted signals were analyzed using eigendecomposition technique and the most significant eigenvalues were identified based on their
power. Multivariate statistical analysis was then performed and the regression analysis resulted in a system of linear equations that best
described the system. Actual and predicted results are in agreement, indicating a good performance and versatility of the developed system
for wide range of formation water content and salinities in the tested crude oil.
2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Time domain transmissometry; Coplanar waveguide; Eigendecomposition; Eigenvalues; Oil reservoir; Water content; Salinity; Multivariate statistical
analysis

1. Introduction
Extracted fluids from producing oil wells are mixtures of
crude oil, water and sediments. Crude oil and water form
emulsion, which can be encountered at many stages during
drilling, producing, transporting and processing of crude oil,
and in many locations such as hydrocarbon reservoirs, well
bores, surface facilities, transportation systems and refineries.
It is important to know the water content in oil emulsions
for controlling and improving process at all operation stages.
The proportion of the various constituents varies dramatically
depending on the geologic formation from which the fluid
is produced and the stage at which the formation is in its
Corresponding author. Tel.: +971 3 713 3698/4297;
fax: +971 3 762 3154.
E-mail address: Mohamed.a@uaeu.ac.ae (A.M.O. Mohamed).

0924-4247/$ see front matter 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.sna.2005.06.014

production life cycle. Formations that have been newly tapped

will normally produce fluids with very low fractional water
content, typically 0.10 or less. This is called an oil continuous
flow. For water contents between 0.25 and 0.75, whether
the flow is oil continuous or water continuous depends on
the exact details of the flow conditions. Near the end of the
formations production life cycle the water content can be
very high indeed.
Determination of water content in crude oil relies on
obtaining measurements at the wellhead, where conditions
are least conductive [1,2]. The conventional method is to
periodically hook up each well to a test separator. Water content is often determined by sampling the test separator flow
and centrifuging the sample. But this is unwieldy and labor
intensive. Getting accurate water content from heavy oil is
even harder with some technologies as its density approaches
that of water. One of the oldest water detection technologies

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measures capacitance, or the ability to store electricity [3].

A capacitance probe is generally installed inside a pipeline
for determining fluids dielectric property from the reflected
signals in the TDR mode of operation and obtaining proportion of oil to water by curve fitting procedure. The data
reduction technique is highly questionable because of the
dependence of dielectric properties on frequency and water
formation salinity. It is also worth noting that the capacitance
probe is generally applicable for cases whereby oil is at a constant temperature with less than 10% water and no entrained
gas.
Other technique is called density inference device, which
is generally utilized for fluids containing 1585% water contents [4]. When the oil and water densities are known, the
device measures the density of the emulsion (the oil/water
mixture), from which the oil-to-water ratio can be inferred.
However, density inference loses resolution in heavy oil.
Therefore, in such situation, a better choice would be
microwave sensors that work on the principle that oil and
water absorb microwave energy differently and are not
affected by the density difference between oil and water
[57]. However, the accuracy of the sensors is affected by
changes in water salinity and oil density. It is worth noting that most of the currently used techniques to determine water contents measure only one reservoir parameter
at a time (i.e., velocity of fluid, density, dielectric constant,
irreducible saturation and porosity). Then, by using empirically correlated functions, relative and absolute conductivities of oil and water are calculated. The water content is
then calculated from other empirical functions in terms of
permeability.
Recently, Said and Mohamed [8] have designed a probe,
which consists of a printed-circuit open-waveguide structure comprising a coplanar waveguide (CPW) structure. The
structure was adopted and designed to serve as a TDT probe.
The key idea stems from the fact that the probe structure
should be a continuation to that of the connecting cables
within the TDT system and would thus consist of a signal
line and a ground conductor. Since the CPW structure has
three separate conductors on one side of the substrate, the
TDT probe can be used in measurements involving medium
flow as well as stationary sample. Also it can be easily integrated with generating and processing electronics, and scaled
to suite measurement requirements. The CPW probe was further utilized by Mohamed et al. [912] to measure water
content in motor diesel oil.
Therefore, the primary objective of this study is to demonstrate the potential usability of the CPW probe to determine
the water content and salinity of a producing oil well by
analyzing captured TDT pulse signals using eigendecomposition technique. The proposed technique characterizes
the captured signatures by a number of eigenvalues calculated by autoregressive modeling and singular value decomposition methods. To demonstrate the proposed method of
analysis, measurement and analysis of oil samples from
Al Bab oil reservoir, Abu Dhabi Emirate, UAE, were used

Table 1
Physicochemical properties of ADCO Bab crude oil
Property

ASTM method
20 C

Specific gravity at
API gravity at 15 C
Kinematic viscosity at 40 C
Total acid number
Asphaltene content

0.8672 gm/cm3

31.67
6.3 cSt
0.9537 mg KOH/g oil
0.2%

D287
D287
D445
D974
D6560

with different combinations of formation water content and

salinity.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Materials
2.1.1. Oil
A light crude oil was used throughout this investigation,
which was obtained from Al Bab oil reservoir operated by
ADCO Company, Abu Dhabi Emirate, UAE. The physicochemical properties of Al Bab crude oil reservoir are shown
in Table 1.
2.1.2. Formation water
The Al Bab reservoir brine with a total salinity of 170 parts
per thousand (17%), pH of 6.2 and conductivity of 113.2 mS
was used as the water phase in all experiments. The major
cations and anions of the formation water was determined via
inductivity coupled plasma spectrometry (ICP) and listed in
Table 2.
2.2. Methods
2.2.1. Preparation of wateroil emulsions
Wateroil and oilwater emulsion solutions were prepared by mixing the Al Bab crude oil with the emulsifing
agent (Triton X-100; iso-octylphenoxy polyethoxy ethanol
as 100 mg/25 ml oil), then adding the formation water to
the mixture at a rate of 1 ml/min with mechanical stirring
(500 rpm) at room temperature.
2.2.2. API gravity measurements
API Gravity is an expression of density. It measured by
ASTM method D287, a reading of the gravity is taken from
Table 2
Formation water brine composition: cations and anions types and concentration as obtained from inductively coupled plasma
Cations (ppm)

Anions (ppm)

Sodium 54000
Calcium 15000
Magnesium 1791
Strontium 880
Potassium 1275

Chloride 155000
Bromide 850
Sulfate 993
Phosphate 90

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135

Fig. 1. A schematic diagram of a TDT measurement arrangement using a

probe that allows fluid flow.

the markings on the stem of the hydrometer at the surface of

the emulsion at 20 C.
2.2.3. Total acid number (TAN) measurements
The TAN for different water oil emulsions was measured
according to ASTM D974. The acidity of emulsified Al Bab
crude oil is measured by its TAN, which is the number of milligrams of KOH required to neutralize the acidity in one gram
of crude oil [13]. P-naphtholbenzene was used as an indicator
for determining the total acid number, this indicator exhibits
one color above a specified pH value and another below it.
By this means, a total acid number can be determined. TAN
value for each of these water oil emulsions was measured in
duplicate.
2.2.4. Monitoring by the time domain transmissometry
(TDT)
A typical TDT measuring system, for monitoring of water
content and salinity of a medium, is shown in Fig. 1. A
monitoring probe, that allows medium flow through it, is connected to a pulse generator from the input port side and to
an oscilloscope from the output port side via a transmission
line (coaxial cables). The oscilloscope is used to acquire the
system response. During measurement, an electrical pulse
with a fast rising edge is generated periodically by the pulse
generator and launched toward the probe. The pulse reaches
the probe after traveling the length of the transmission line
connecting the generator and the probe. As the pulse propagates through the probe, its amplitude and propagation speed
are affected by the medium being monitored. The transmitted pulse signal propagates forward toward the oscilloscope
after traveling the length of the transmission line connecting
the probe and the oscilloscope. Thus, the transmitted pulse
appears on the oscilloscope after a transmission time relative
to the instant the pulse was launched at the generator end.
The transmission time is representative of the total distance
traveled by the pulse, as well as the electrical characteristics
of the media surrounding the probe.
For proper operation of the TDT system and accurate measurements, it is necessary that pulse transmitted from the
generator be the only signal captured at the oscilloscope end
to extract the parameters of material surrounding the probe.
Pulse reflections, however, do occur generally due to a change
in the characteristic impedance of the transmission path trav-

Fig. 2. A drawing of conventional probe structure for within flow measurements (top), and the developed printed-circuit planar probe (bottom).

eled by the pulse. A change in the characteristic impedance

along the transmission path can occur at system nodes located
at interfaces between different parts, such as adaptors, connectors, and input/output terminals of the devices used in the
system, as well as the presence of a medium around the probe
that changes its characteristic impedance. Although it cannot
be eliminated during material detection, multiple reflections
of the pulse due to mismatching between the different parts
of the measurement system should be minimized.
Using devices with standard input/output characteristic
impedances, such as 50 or 75
, reduces design requirements
to have uniform characteristic impedance through the entire
measuring system. Since the monitoring probe used in this
work is a custom design, it is necessary that the terminal
impedance of the probe be the same as the characteristic
impedance of the entire system. This condition can be satisfied depending on the probe structure, geometry, and the
involved design procedures.
2.2.5. CPW probe
Different possible electrical structures can be adopted and
designed to serve as a probe. The key idea stems from the
fact that the probe structure should be a continuation to that
of the connecting cables within the TDT system and would
thus consist of a signal line and a ground conductor. Fig. 2(a)
shows one example of probe structure used by McFarlane [14]
that utilizes an open coaxial transmission line sensor, which
allows measurement of flowing medium. Another example
is proposed by the drawing in Fig. 2(b), which consists of a
printed-circuit open-waveguide structure comprising a coplanar waveguide (CPW) structure [8].
A CPW is a surface oriented planar transmission line made
of three conducting traces, as shown in Fig. 3. A center strip is
placed on the surface of a dielectric substrate with two ground
planes running adjacent and parallel to the strip on the same
surface. Because of the availability of three separate conductors on one side of the substrate, a CPW probe structure
has several advantageous including; the use in measurements

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Fig. 5. A plot of the generated pulse used in the measuring system as captured
on the oscilloscope: r , f , and are rise time, fall time, and signal width at
50% of the amplitude.
Fig. 3. A drawing of CPW transmission line showing all geometrical and
material parameters.

involving medium flow as well as stationary sample, easy

integration with generating and processing electronics, and
scalable to suite measurement requirements.
The CPW probe structure is connected to the TDT measuring system from the pulse generator side and the oscilloscope
side (Fig. 1). In order to minimize multiple reflections resulting from a mismatch between the probe and connecting cables
of the TDT system, CPW probe must be designed, when the
probe held in air, for characteristic impedance similar to that
of the cables of 50
. In the TDT system, coaxial cables with
a characteristic impedance of 50
and line capacitance of
101 pF/m were used as to connect the different parts of the
system. Thus, the CPW probe was designed for a characteristic impedance of 50
[8].
2.2.6. System components
In the constructed measurement system shown in Fig. 4, a
pulse source capable of generating pulses with 125 MHz repetition rate and rise and fall times around 2 ns was used. In
the actual operation of the measurement system, the parameters of generated pulses were set such that the repetition
rate is 1 MHz, rise and fall time r and f , respectively, are
3 ns, and the pulse width is 10 ns. Fig. 5 shows a plot of the
used pulse as captured by an oscilloscope with an illustration
of the different pulse parameters. The pulse generator had an
output terminal impedance of 50
. To verify the matching of
the different parts of the constructed system, the response of
the measurement system was measured in air during system

Fig. 6. TDT transmitted signal used in the measuring as captured on the

oscilloscope while the probe is held in air.

characterization measurement. The response of the system

indicated a well-matched system as shown in Fig. 6.
2.2.7. TDT experimental measurements
To evaluate the performance of the CPW probe to measure
the water content and salinity, crude oil emulsions in 600 ml
beakers was heated to 55 C (simulate the temperature in the
United Arab Emirates reservoirs), and then the CPW probe
was immersed in the emulsion and become ready for measurements in the TDT mode of operation. To study the effect
of water content, and salinity variations, at constant temperature, transmitted signals were recored for each case.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Physicochemical properties of water oil emulsion

Fig. 4. Photograph of the constructed TDT measurement system set-up.

3.1.1. API gravity

The density of crude oil is often expressed as API gravity (API = (141.5/Gs) 131.5; where Gs is specific gravity).
It is worh noting that high API values relate to low density
oils and vice versa. Fig. 7 shows the relationship between
the API gravity of crude oil emulsions and the water content for a three series at different salinities of 4, 10, and
17%. It was found that API gravity decreased gradually with
the increase of water content. This may be attributed to the
increase of the whole density as a result of the increase of

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137

Fig. 7. API gravity of water Bab crude oil emulsions, effect of water content
and salinity concentration on the emulsion density.

Fig. 8. Total acid number of water Bab crude oil emulsions, effect of water
content and salinity concentration on the emulsion acidity.

water content (water density of 0.998 gm/cm3 , oil density of

0.8672 gm/cm3 ). Comparing the API gravity data obtained
for crude oil emulsions at different salinities (17, 10, and
4%), there was no noticed variation in API gravity at low
water content from 10 to 20 wt.%, while at high water contents from 30 to 60 wt.% the effect of salt becomes clear in
decreasing API gravity.
The linear regression module in Multivariate MINITAB
Statistical Analysis Software describes the relation between
water content, salinity, and API gravity as shown in Eq. (1):

increase of brine content. To explain such effect, one needs to

look at the chemical structure of oil. It was reported that crude
oil contains carboxylic acid fraction with other compounds
identified as linear fatty acids, isoprenoid acids, monocyclic,
polycyclic and aromatic acids [15]. Also Mackenzie et al.
[16] reported that naphthenic acids, which are known to be
produced during the in-reservoir biodegradation of petroleum
hydrocarbons, are part of the compound groups, which are
responsible for high TAN values in oils. Fig. 8 also shows
the effect of brine concentration on the acidity variation of
water oil emulsions through dilution of brine solution (salinity concentrations of 17, 10, and 4%). It was found that at 17%
salinity, the emulsions have a TAN from 0.897 to 0.554 mg
KOH/g. According to Meredith et al. [17] water oil emulsions
having a TAN > 0.5 mg KOH/g are being classified as high
TAN. With dilution of brine solution the total acid number
decreases from 0.78 to 0.42 mg/KOH for 10% salinity and
from 0.448 to 0.222 mg/KOH for 4% salinity. This can be
explained in view of the reported brine composition study
by Barth and Riis [18] and Borgund and Barth [19]. Deepwater crude oil has a large polar constituent, which increases
the amount of dissolved hydrocarbons in produced water and
refinery effluents. Also Re [20] suggested that the high polar
content is mainly comprised of short-chain organic acids. So
with the use of deionized water for brine dilution the acidity
of oil mixture decreased.

WC = 88.8 0.640 salinity 2.40 API gravity

(31.55)

(4.59)

(1)

(23.17)

where WC is the water content as a weight percent; is a function of salinity concentration as a percent and API gravity as
degree. The numbers in parentheses below the coefficients
are the values of the corresponding t-tests, which test the
significance of the respective regression coefficients.
The analysis of variance (ANOVA) F-test is found to be
268.45, with 2 and 15 degrees of freedom, the fitted regression
model explains (R2 = 97.3%, R2 (adjusted) = 96.9%).
Based on Eq. (1), water content can be determined from
the knowledge of salinity of formation water and API gravity of the crude oil. This requires that additional experiments
should be conducted to determine these properties. Keeping in mind that reservoir conditions are always changing
in terms of water formation salinity, one needs to utilize or
develop other techniques that would be able to provide real
time monitoring of water content and salinity from a producing oil well.
3.1.2. Total acid number
Depending on oil source, additive content, refining procedure, or deterioration in service, petroleum oil may exhibit
certain acid or alkaline (base) characteristics. Data on the
nature and extent of these characteristics may be driven from
the products neutralization number or total acid number as it
is commonly known. The effect of water content and salinity
on the acidity of water oil emulsions is shown in Fig. 8. It
was observed that the total acid number decreases with the

3.2. TDT signal analysis

3.2.1. Water content variation
3.2.1.1. Time domain analysis. To demonstrate the effect of
water content of Al Bab crude oil on system response, emulsions were tested for various water contents ranging from
10 to 80 wt.% at constant salinity of 17%. Fig. 9 shows the
transimatted signal when the CPW probe is immersed in the
emulsions at different water contents. The resuls indicated
that as the water content increased, the transmitted pulse
amplitude decreased, signal peak broadening increases and
the time delay increased (time takes the amplitude of the pulse
signal to rise from 10% of its final value to 90% of its final

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Fig. 9. Measured response for the first transmitted signal of the constructed
TDT system for various water contents at constant salinity of 17% in ADCO
Bab crude oil.

Fig. 11. Variation of calculated magnitude of eigenvalues with the order of

the eigenvalues and the percent of water content at constant salinity concentration of 17%.

value). The results were further analyzed by plotting the variations of the maximum signal amplitude with water content
as shown in Fig. 10. The linear relationship between the maximum amplitude the water content of the emulsion indicates
the decrease of maximum amplitude with increase of water
content due to the increase of the overall bulk conductivity
of the fluid. This coupled with the fluid changing back and
forth from oil continuous to water continuous. If the flow is
oil continuous the conductive water droplets are generally
isolated from one another. If the flow is water continuous
the conductive droplets are all touching each other, which
increases the overall bulk conductivity. This is in agreement
with the diffuse ion layer which indicates that for the same
concentration, as the water content increases the dielectric
constant increases leading to a decrease of the amplitude of
the transmitted signal [21].
3.2.1.2. Eigendecomposition analysis. Captured signals can
further be analyzed by different methods such as Fourier spectral analysis [22,23,9], power spectral analysis [22,23] and
eigendecomposition [10,2427]. Unlike Fourier decomposition, which partitions signals based on harmonic frequency
using parametric sines and cosines, eigendecomposition partitions signals by their strength using adaptive non-parametric

basis functions. Signal components can thus be separated

by differences in power. Therefore, eigendecomposition has
been utilized to further analyze the transmitted signals. Signals are characterized by number of eigenvalues that could
be chosen in equal number to the system variables. This of
course is important to have a determinant solution.
The transmitted waveforms for crude oil emulsion at various water contents and fixed salinity of 17% were analyzed
via the eigendecomposition method. Typical results for the
calculated eigenvalues are shown in Fig. 11. The figure shows
the relationship between the magnitude of the calculated
eigenvalues and order of eigenvalue (index). The figure shows
only the first six eigenmodes which contribute most significantly to the signal. The results indicated that for the same
water content, the magnitude of the eigenvalue decreases as
its index increases. For the same order of eigenvalues, as the
water content increases, the magnitude decreases due to resistance decrease and capacitance increase. To identify the effect
of water content, the results are redrawn (Fig. 12) in terms of
variation of the first eigenvalues (E1 E5 ) with variations of
water content from 10 to 80 wt.% at constant salinity of 17%.
It can be seen that as the order of the eigenvalue increases,
the significance of its calculated magnitude decrease due to
the increase in capacitance and decrease in resistance.

Fig. 10. Relationship between the maximum amplitude response for the
first signal of the constructed TDT system and water content percentage at
constant salinity of 17%.

Fig. 12. Variation of calculated magnitude of eigenvalues (order of the eigenvalues E1 E5 ) for various water content and constant salinity of 17%.

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Fig. 13. Measured response for the first transmitted signal of the constructed
TDT system for various salinity concentrations and constant water content
of 50 wt.% in ADCO Bab crude oil.

3.2.2. Salinity variation

3.2.2.1. Time domain analysis. The salt content in formation water can be influenced by the technique used for oil
recovery. Common techniques are water or steam injections
into the active oil reservoir to enhance the oil recovery rate.
Thus, the injection fluid can dilute the naturally occurring
formation water. If the injection fluid is fresh water this can
cause the salt content of the produced fluids to vary from
the naturally occurring level down to very low levels. To
demonstrate the ability of the system to sense the changes in
salinity along the wave-guide, the measurements of Al Bab
crude oil containing different salinity concentrations have
been studied through dilution of the formation water from
17 to 13, 10, 7, 4 and 1% then mixing these different saline
solutions with Al Bab crude oil at constant water content
of 50 wt.%. The experimental results shown in Fig. 13 indicate that for the same water content as salinity concentration
decreases the transmitted pulse amplitude increased and the
time delay decreased. Fig. 14 shows the increases of the maximum amplitude as salinity decreases because the presence
of salt in the emulsion causes the emulsion to become more
conductive and enhances the ionic mobility. It is worth noting
that as conductivity increases dielectric constant decreases.

Fig. 14. Relationship between the maximum amplitude response for the first
signal of the constructed TDT system and salinity concentration at constant
water content of 50 wt.%.

139

Fig. 15. Variation of calculated magnitude of eigenvalues with the order of

the eigenvalues and the salinity concentration at constant water content of
50 wt.%.

3.2.2.2. Eigendecomposition analysis. Typical results for

the calculated eigenvalues are shown in Fig. 15 in the form
of the relationship between the magnitude of the calculated
eigenvalues and order of eigenvalue (index). From Fig. 15,
it was found that for the same salinity the magnitude of the
eigenvalue decreases as the order increases. For the same
order of eigenvalues as the salinity increases, the magnitude
of the eigenvalue decreases due decrease of medium resistance and increase of medium capacitance. To identify the
effect of salinity, the results are redrawn (Fig. 16) in terms
of variation of the first eigenvalues (E1 E5 ) with variations
of salinity concentrations (117%) at constant water content
of 50 wt.%. It can be seen that as the order of the eigenvalue increases, the significance of its calculated magnitude
decreases.
3.2.3. Determination of water content and salinity
The Multivariate MINITAB Statistical analysis Software
was used for determination of water content and salinity concentration of the Al Bab crude oil emulsions. There are six
data series for Al Bab crude oil emulsions data series. Each
series for different salinities (1, 4, 7, 10, 13, and 17%) and
water contents (1080 wt.%). A three-dimensional plot for

Fig. 16. Variation of calculated magnitude of eigenvalues (order of the eigenvalues E1 E5 ) for various salinity concentrations and constant water content
of 50 wt.%.

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140

Fig. 17. (a) A three-dimensional plot for the variations of the first eigenmode
with respect to water content and salinity concentrations. (b) Predicted threedimensional plot for the variations of the first eigenmode with respect to
water content and salinity concentrations.

the variations of the first eigenmode with respect to water

content (WC %) and salinity concentrations (%) is shown in
Fig. 17(a). A response surface of the first degree was fitted
to these data. The numbers in parentheses below the coefficients are the values of the corresponding t-tests which test
the significance of the respective regression coefficients:
E1 = 1.28 0.00882 WC 0.0102 salinity
(129.40)

(55.84)

(2)

(15.13)

where E1 is the first eigenmode of the transmitted signal, WC

the water content as a percent, and salinity concentration as
a percent. The observed significance levels (p-values) of the
above t-test are all <0.0001, indicating that all regression
coefficients are highly significant and cannot be dispensed
with. Furthermore, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) F-test
is found to be 1673.72, with 2 and 45 degrees of freedom, which indicates that the regression model is highly
significant overall (the corresponding p-value is less than
0.0001). In fact, the fitted regression model explains about
98.7% of the observed variations in amplitude (R2 = 98.7%,
R2 (adjusted) = 98.6%). Also, the coefficient of variations is
found to be small (s/mean = 0.02506/1.0513 = 2.38%). Based
on Eq. (2), the fitted surface is shown in Fig. 17(b).

Fig. 18. (a) A three-dimensional plot for the variations of the second eigenmode with respect to water content and salinity concentrations. (b) Predicted
three-dimensional plot for the variations of the second eigenmode with
respect to water content and salinity concentrations.

Similarly, a three-dimensional plot for the variations of the

second eigenmode with respect to water content (WC %) and
(salinity %) is shown in Fig. 18(a). A response surface of the
first degree was fitted to these data. For these data, a similar
methodology to that indicated above produced the following
regression equation:
E2 = 0.0881 0.00612 WC 0.00625 salinity
(110.09)

(47.84)

(3)

(11.48)

where E2 is the second eigenmode of the transmitted signal, WC the water content as a weight percent, and salinity concentration as a percent. The observed significance
levels (p-values) of the above t-test are all <0.0001, indicating that all regression coefficients are highly significant
and cannot be dispensed with. Furthermore, the analysis
of variance (ANOVA) F-test is found to be 1210.84, with
2 and 45 degrees of freedom, which indicates that the
regression model is highly significant overall (the corresponding p-value is less than 0.0001). In fact, the fitted
regression model explains about 98.2% of the observed
variations in amplitude (R2 = 98.2%, R2 (adjusted) = 98.1%).
Also, the coefficient of variations is found to be small

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141

ing oil well. Multivariate statistical analysis was performed

and a system of linear equations was developed. Actual and
predicted results are in agreement, indicating a good performance and versatility of the developed system for wide range
of formation water content and salinities in the tested crude
oil. Therefore, with the use of CPW probe and the eigendecomposition technique one could predict the water content
and salinity in crude oil samples.

Acknowledgement
The study was supported by a research grant provided by
the Research Affairs of the United Arab Emirates University.

References

Fig. 19. (a) Predicted of water content versus measured water content at
various salinity concentration. (b) Predicted of salinity concentration versus
measured salinity at various water content.

(s/mean = 0.02030/0.4985 = 4.07%). Based on Eq. (3), the fitted surface is shown in Fig. 18(b).
To determine the water content and salinity concentrations in terms of (observed values of) the first and second
eigenmodes, Microsoft Excel was used to solve the system
of linear equations such as Eqs. (2) and (3). For both water
content and salinity variations, the predicted values are plotted against the actual values in Fig. 19(a) and (b), respectively.
Upon comparing the actual and predicted values, it turned out
that the proposed method was very successful in predicting
both water content and salinity concentration.

4. Summary and conclusion

This study has evaluated the ability of the coplanar waveguide (CPW) probe to monitor the water content and salinity
of a producing oil well. The captured time domain transmission (TDT) pulse signals were analyzed using eigendecomposition technique. The technique characterizes the
captured signatures by a number of eigenvalues calculated
by autoregressive modeling and singular value decomposition methods. The results indicated that the CPW probe is
capable of detecting water content and salinity in a produc-

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Biographies
A.M.O. Mohamed earned his M.Eng. in 1983
and PhD in 1987 from the Department of Civil
Engineering and Applied Mechanics, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. From 1987 to 1998,
Dr. Mohamed was employed by McGill University, and was the associate director of the
Geotechnical Research Centre (GRC) and a faculty lecturer in the Department of Civil Engineering. In 1998, he joined the Department of Civil
and Environmental Engineering, UAE University
where he is currently a professor of Civil Engineering & the Advisor of the Associate Provost for Research Affairs
Sector, UAE University. Dr. Mohamed is currently the president of

Gulf Society for Geoengineering, the editor-in-chief of Developments in

Arid Regions Research Series Published by A.A. Balkema/Swets and
Zeitlinger, Lisse, The Netherlands, and the former editor-in-chief of the
Emirates Journal for Engineering Research Published by UAE University. Dr. Mohameds research activities have resulted in co-authoring six
books and publishing over 180 papers. Dr. Mohameds present research
activities contribute to soil properties and behaviour, soil stabilization,
soilpollutant interactions, transport processes, multi-phase flow, remediation of polluted soils, monitoring of subsurface pollutants via time
domain telemetric techniques, artificial recharge of subsurface aquifers,
subsidence control, mitigation of acid mine drainage, recovery of useful
products from acid mine drainage, and environmental risk management.
Maisa El Gamal earned her MSc in 1993 from
Material Science Department, Institute of Graduate Studies and Research, Alexandria University, Egypt and PhD in 1999 from Chemistry
Department, Faculty of Science, Tanta University,
Egypt. From 1993 to 1999, Dr. El Gamal was
employed by the Agriculture Research Center,
Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation,
Cairo, Egypt as a Research Chemist and from
1999 to present, Dr. El Gamal is being employed
by the United Arabic Emirates University. Dr. El
Gamal research interest is in the domain of soil sand water chemistry.
Raa A. Said, is an IEEE member since 1992,
was born in Palestine, 27 February 1966. Raa
Said received the BSc degree in electrical engineering from Kuwait University in 1988, and the
MSc and PhD degrees in 1992 and 1995, respectively, both in electrical engineering from the University of Manitoba, Canada. He was awarded a
post-doctorate fellowship from the University of
Manitoba for the period 19951997, during which
he founded and acted as the president of Micron
Force Instruments Inc., Winnipeg, Man., Canada.
Currently, he is the director of the Unit of Internally Funded Projects
and an associate professor of electrical engineering at the United Arab
Emirates University. Dr. Saids research activities include the development of detection and testing techniques at the macro and micro-scale,
measurement and instrumentation, scanning probe microscopy, and the
development of micro-fabrication techniques.