Development of a High-Temperature Co-Fe-Si-B Amorphous Wire Fluxgate Magnetometer for Downhole Attitude Measurement in MWD Systems at Temperatures up to 175 °C
Measurement While Drilling (MWD) systems require high-precision triaxial magnetometers for real-time downhole attitude sensing, yet conventional fluxgates fail to meet the stringent size, noise, bandwidth, and temperature demands of deep reservoirs (>175 °C). To bridge this gap, we present a miniaturized triaxial fluxgate magnetometer (23 × 23 × 21 mm<sup>3</sup>) leveraging Co-Fe-Si-B amorphous wire cores-a material selected for its near-zero magnetostriction and tunable magnetic anisotropy. The sensor achieves breakthrough performance: a 300 Hz bandwidth combined with noise levels below 200 pT/√Hz at 1 Hz when operating at 175 °C while maintaining full functionality with the probe surviving temperatures exceeding 200 °C. This advancement paves the way for more accurate wellbore positioning and steering in high-temperature hydrocarbon and geothermal reservoirs.
Authors
- Guangyou Fang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7443-0850)
- Xin Zhuang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7605-2363)
- Zheng Lu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5368-4205)
- Bin Yan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3718-9647)
- Wanhua Zhu
Institutions
- China Academy of Space Technology (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Aerospace Information Research Institute (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Sensors
- Published
- 2025-09-26
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3390/s25195972
- Primary Topic
- Magnetic Field Sensors Techniques
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Key Technologies Research and Development Program