KSEF KCF: Commercialization of an Existing Patent for Borehole Seismic Measurement Equipment

Borehole seismic testing has traditionally employed the use of a downhole receiver consisting of geophones in a sealed container along with a separate inflatable bladder for seating the geophones against the inside of the boring. These receivers can be relatively large and expensive. As an alternative, a smaller, lighter borehole receiver design has been developed and patented. The new instrument is approximately 20 cm long and 6 cm in diameter and weights less than 1 kg. The instrument is a small inflatable cylinder with accelerometers fixed to the inside of an elastic membrane. When the instrument is placed into a soil or rock borehole and inflated, the accelerometers are intimately coupled to the inside of the borehole wall. Seismic waves propagating past the borehole are then faithfully measured by the instrument with an oscilloscope or signal analyzer. The instrument was patented in 2011 (U.S. Patent No. 7,954,595) and is described in detail in the ASTM Geotechnical Testing Journal (Kalinski, M.E., 2012, "A Small, Lightweight Borehole Receiver for Crosshole and Downhole Seismic Testing," Geotechnical Testing Journal, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 363-366). Herein, funds are being requested to commercialize the patented device.