Making the Most of Masters Project Proposal Form Name and address of Organisation: Mud Watcher Lt t/a Mud

d Automatics Name of the key contact in Organisation: Ross Colquhoun Contact e-mail and phone number: Title of proposed project: The Rheo Watcher Project outline and intended outcomes: The project is to create a final design which would lead to a Rheo Watcher being built that was suitable for lab testing The Rheo refers to the Rheology of any Drilling Fluid (Mud) that is used while drilling. These fluids are non Newtonian and dynamically change as drilling proceeds. Currently there is no device available to monitor the Rheology continually and in real time despite the fact the Drilling Industry would benefit greatly from it. Mud Automatic has been working on this for over two year. Approximately 13 months was spent designing and testing a prototype model, which basically worked but was let down by a 10% inconsistency. With the lessons of the first attempt, a new model was developed which will be successful. Unfortunately (due to limited budget) development is on hold.

Any additional comments e.g. details of specific disciplines required, methods to be used, travel involved, specific student requirement and skill sets etc: The skill set required - s/w engineering combined with an understanding of simple hardware. This stage in the project is to integrate simple batch data (inputted from a touch pad HMI) which is data from Lab tests. This will then integrate to a second set of data automatically inputted from 3 sources on a PLC either as Modbus or Analogue signals. The first batch input defines a curve which can be expressed mathematically and the 2nd series of inputs will allow this curve to be continually modified reflecting Muds dynamic nature. We are based in Altens but I feel the work could be easily performed off location. We are a very small company trying to succeed against much larger international corporations. This offers much greater flexibility and informality than them. The impact of any assistance that leads to a Commercial product will be appreciated much more in our small company. It would probably be lost otherwise.

Do you foresee any Intellectual Property, or confidentiality issues? If so, what form might these take? I have an ongoing Patent application and would require IPR ownership of any developments. I would expect a standard Confidentiality agreement.

LTW2: Making the Most of Masters