In situ optical computation fluid analysis system and method

A method for determining at least one property of crude petroleum comprising:

• causing the petroleum to produce interacted light from incident light;
• dividing the interacted light in to reflected light and transmitted light, the reflected and transmitted light each having an intensity;
• producing a first signal based on the intensity of the transmitted light and a second signal based on the intensity of the reflected light;
• and
• determining the at least one property based on the first and second signals.

A system for determining at least one property of crude petroleum comprising:

• an apparatus for applying incident light to the petroleum to cause the petroleum to produce interacted light;
• an optical calculation device for performing a regression calculation on the interacted light, the device being responsive to the interacted light incident thereon to produce at least one output light signal manifesting the calculation and the corresponding at least one property;
• and
• a signal processing arrangement for determining the at least one property from the at least one output light signal.

An apparatus for determining a property of a component of crude petroleum in situ at the petroleum comprising:

• a housing having a cavity and arranged to be attached to a pipe having an internal region;
• a light source in the housing;
• an internal reflectance element (IRE) in the housing for transmitting light received from the source via an element input through the element into the attached pipe internal region for applying the light to the petroleum to interact the light with the petroleum and for sequentially receiving the light interacted light at a plurality of element locations, the sequentially received interacted light for being transmitted through an element output;
• a multivariate optical filter element (MOE) in the housing for receiving the interacted light transmitted through the element output for performing a regression calculation on the received light and for producing at least one output signal manifesting the regression calculation ;
• and
• at least one detector in the housing responsive to the at least one output signal for generating a further output signal manifesting said property.