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Though described by Enright in 1955 (Enright 1955), noise logging was not commercially available until after McKinley et al. demonstrated its utility in 1973 (McKinley et al. 1973). The traditional noise log is simply a record of a passive measure of the audible sound detected by a sensitive hydrophone at a number of locations in the wellbore. Because sound is generated by fluid turbulence, high noise amplitudes indicate locations where the flow path causes additional turbulence to develop. Fluid moving through restricted channels, leaks, flow from perforations, and flow past the logging sonde are among the phenomena that can produce characteristic sounds in the wellbore and that may be detected with a noise log (McKinley and Bower 1979). Analysis of the frequency characteristics of the measured noise can distinguish between the various possible sources of high sound amplitudes, making the noise log a powerful tool for well diagnosis. The traditional noise log recorded the sound amplitudes in a series of frequency bands, all in the audible frequency ranges below 20 kHz.

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