Sercel 508 Instrument Test Analysis

Abstract
Instructions for use Version 1.1
November 2017

Ian Vincent
ian@seismatters.com
Table of Contents
Background ............................................................................................................................................. 2
Setup ....................................................................................................................................................... 2
Cautions .................................................................................................................................................. 2
Using the Program................................................................................................................................... 3
Settings................................................................................................................................................ 4
Gain ................................................................................................................................................. 4
Logo ................................................................................................................................................. 4
Listing Output and PDF Output ....................................................................................................... 4
Line Graph Style .............................................................................................................................. 4
Select a folder ..................................................................................................................................... 5
Displaying Results ................................................................................................................................... 7
Saving, Copying and Printing Displays .......................................................................................... 10
Result Displays ...................................................................................................................................... 11
FDU Noise.......................................................................................................................................... 11
Noise (Sercel) ................................................................................................................................ 11
Total Noise .................................................................................................................................... 11
DC Offset (Sys)............................................................................................................................... 11
DC Offset (Resid) ........................................................................................................................... 11
FDU Gain Error .................................................................................................................................. 12
Gain Err Sercel ............................................................................................................................... 12
Gain Err Alt .................................................................................................................................... 12
FDU Phase Error ................................................................................................................................ 12
FDU CMRR ......................................................................................................................................... 13
FDU Distortion .................................................................................................................................. 13
Distortion Sercel............................................................................................................................ 13
Distortion Alt ................................................................................................................................. 13
FDU Pulse .......................................................................................................................................... 15
Sensor Noise ..................................................................................................................................... 16
Sensor Resistance ............................................................................................................................. 18
Sensor Pulse ...................................................................................................................................... 19
Sensor Tilt ......................................................................................................................................... 20
About..................................................................................................................................................... 21
Support ................................................................................................................................................. 21
Change Log ............................................................................................................................................ 22
Background
A common requirement these days is independent analysis of instrument tests.

Most crews have some facility for it with onsite processing or Verif-I’s Testif-i package
(http://www.verif-i.com/testifi-land.asp), but neither of these is very convenient or user friendly.
Nor are the displays, if produced at all, ‘Report Grade’.

I have actually seen on a couple of occasions where the contractor’s QC department has presented
a long listing of test results to the rep, who signed off on them as being acceptable, despite all
channels showing clear failures due to a parameter entry by the QC (subsequent analysis showed no
errors). This embarrassment could have been avoided with a graphical summary of results, and of
course some diligence by both parties.

SITA508 will analyse the SEGD files recorded and provide good looking displays as well as listings.

It is very easy to use. Simply point it at the folder where the test files reside and the program does
the rest.

Currently the following tests can be processed:

 FDU Noise
 FDU Gain Error
 FDU Phase Error
 FDU CMRR
 FDU Distortion
 FDU Pulse 1
 Sensor Noise
 Sensor Resistance
 Sensor Pulse 2
 Sensor Tilt 3

Refer to the Sercel documentation for details on the Sercel algorithms.

Setup
All files should be placed in a single folder of your choice. Under Windows 7/8/10 make sure it is a
folder that can be written to by the application. This is usually not a problem, but some corporate
preventers of IT place limits on users.

There are no licence keys required. The program is provided free, as is. If you do find it useful, please
consider making a donation by clicking on the Support button.

Cautions
Whilst I believe the results are true and correct, the program is for confidence building only. If you
find something suspicious, investigate using other tools. The algorithms and methods used for
calculations are based on the Sercel documentation, but are not exactly the same as those used by
Sercel.

1
Selected calculations are performed for FDU Pulse
2
Fo and Damping are calculated for Sensor Pulse
3
Sensor Tilt is treated the same way as Sensor Pulse
Using the Program
On starting you will see something like this

First, you should check the settings

Settings

Gain
Of note here is the FDU Gain settings. In version 1 of the 508 software, FDU gain code is not
recorded in the SEGD file. Therefore, you need to specify it here as some test results are dependent
on knowing the gain.

Sercel say they will remedy this in the next major release (version 2). The Program should be able to
handle this, but obviously it hasn’t been tested.

So when Version 2 is used, do not select ‘Use’. If the results are incorrect, you can revert.

I will test when data becomes available.

Logo
You can use a logo of your choice on the displays. It must reside in the Logos folder which is created
automatically by the program in the same folder that the EXE resides.

IE if you put SITA508 in D:\SITA then the logos folder will be D:\SITA\Logos

Listing Output and PDF Output

Both obvious. If selected will show the result when generated.

Line Graph Style

Sets the outpost style for line graphs:
 Segment Line

Segment style is most suited to small channel counts. And line for many channels. Test and choose
the one you like.

Select a folder
Once settings have been confirmed, you can open a folder containing SEGD test data.

Browse to the folder of your choice and any valid test files in that folder will be loaded and a
summary of results shown:
 The summary can be listed by clicking on the List Menu Item

Two options are available as shown here:

The XML output is directly compatible with current versions of Microsoft Excel (IE you can open with
Excel) and may at times be more useful than a simple text output. Use whatever suits your needs.
The same listing options are available when looking at results.
Displaying Results

Click Show Results OR double click on any of the tests shown on the summary.

A panel with the loaded test listed is on the left. Click on any of them to show the results from that
test.

On the right is some option buttons that apply to the selected test. They change as appropriate.

The first display is always the line graph.

The Histogram is available from the tab at the top.

Likewise the numeric listing and failures, if any.

Click List to output a Text, XML or CSV listing of the displayed results.

The entire panel can be resized to provide a graph of the size and aspect ratio you desire.

Click and drag the edges or corner to resize

The appearance of the graphical displays can be changed by clicking Settings or right clicking on the
display area and selecting settings from the popup menu.

This will bring up a configuration dialog specific to the type of graph displayed (histo shown here):

Adjust things to suit your needs.

More setting are available by clicking the More Settings button:

This allows you to set the size, font, style and colours of the various text items.

This feature might not be available in future versions.

A similar, but customised setup will be shown for the line graph if selected.

Saving, Copying and Printing Displays

Right Click on the display to bring up the menu and select your desired action:

PDFs can be output directly from ‘Save to PDF’ (faster) or through the Print dialog if PDF printing
software is installed.
Result Displays

FDU Noise
Four options are available when displaying FDU Noise

Noise (Sercel)
The first shows the expected result, corresponding to the Sercel documentation.

Total Noise
Total Noise shows Noise + DC offset. This may be surprisingly large. Sercel specify that noise be
calculated above 3Hz, so DC offset does not show. No limit has been specified by Sercel for DC
offset, so it is not indicated.

DC Offset (Sys)
DC Offset (Sys) shows the DC offset removed by the recording system. This value is recorded in the
SEGD File. For tests, this is currently zero. As Sercel may change this in the future it is available here.
For 508 Version 1 software at least, nothing will be seen as it is zero.

DC Offset (Resid)
DC Offset (Resid) displays the DC offset of the test data. So if Sercel do elect to remove DC offset in
the future, any residual can be seen here. For now, it shows the full DC offset of the data, which
appears to be quite large on the sample data that I have.

As with total Noise, there is no specification or limit for DC offset. So don’t complain too loudly to
Sercel if you see some channels higher or lower than others. A channel that is vastly different to the
others though, is worth investigating.
FDU Gain Error
Two options are available for FDU Gain Error

Gain Err Sercel

Gain Err Sercel uses the Sercel published algorithm to calculate gain error

Gain Err Alt

Gain Err Alt uses a similar, but slightly different method, allowing for verification of the Sercel result.
Little difference was seen in the sample data sets available.

FDU Phase Error

Only one option is available for FDU Phase Error.

There are not many ways to calculate phase error!

FDU CMRR
As with Phase Error, only one option is available for FDU CMRR.

DC offset is removed before calculating CMRR.

FDU Distortion
Two options are available for this test

Distortion Sercel
Distortion Sercel uses the Sercel published method

Distortion Alt
Distortion Alt uses the conventional method of calculating THD.

The results are slightly different, with Distortion Alt producing a better result (IMO).

Wikipedia describes the usual method (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_harmonic_distortion):

This is the method used in Distortion Alt.

From the Sercel Manual, Sercel use this calculation:

Both methods produce results that are within specifications and both produce believable results.

The diffence is in the distribution of results, with Distortion Alt being tighter and close to a normal
distribution. More data is required for better evaluation.
FDU Pulse

DSP theory tells us that the system response is described from its pulse response. From a practical,
QC point of view though, we are less interested in the details of system response (we can’t change
it), and more interested in channels that are different from the rest.

So, what is calculated here is the maximum value of the pulse – they should all be very similar as
should the frequency line that corresponds to the peak value.

We then calculate an average of all traces and compare each channel against the average to show
the deviation.

Time will tell if this analysis is useful.

Sensor Noise

The first two options are quiet obvious. They provide a global view of the tested spread.

Dominant frequency though is the frequency line with the maximum amplitude.

Typically there are noise sources on the spread – the recorder generator, camps, 3rd party plant
equipment, power lines etc.

The display of dominant frequency helps us to quantify the effect these have on the spread.

Here we see a quarter of the tested channels are seeing ~10Hz ‘noise’. In this case, we need to
remember the natural frequency of the geophones. In this case 10Hz, so it’s not entirely surprising
to see 10Hz as a significant contribution. That is a good thing in this case.

The lesson is, be careful interpreting this (and any) display.

Limits and scales can be set for Sensor Noise:

If a Field Noise Test is selected for display then the ‘Limits’ Option becomes available in the menu
bar:
Clicking this brings up a dialog that will allow you to set scales and limits as desired. This applies
ONLY to Field Noise Tests
Sensor Resistance

The way Sensor resistance is calculated is interesting.

First, the DC offset level is measured, then a known current applied to the sensor and the resulting
voltage measured. The resistance can then be calculated by first removing the DC offset from the
measured voltage. This is why both are available for display. Probably not much use in real life, but
may interest some.

Sensor resistance has only been tested at Gain 1. Results may (probably) will be incorrect at Gain 2.

When I get data for Gain 2, I will fix any issues.

Sensor Pulse

The Sensor Pulse test allows us to calculate some geophone parameters. Peak and RMS are obvious,
but Natural Frequency and Damping less so.

Natural Frequency is determined by finding the peak amplitude line in the frequency domain. This
will only work if the geophones are not overdamped, but that is not usually the case.

Here, part of the spectra of a geophone pulse. 10Hz is quite clearly the peak.

Damping is calculated based on the ratio of the amplitude of the peak and the amplitude of the
negative going lobe immediately after the peak.

A full description is available in the Sensor SMT 200/300/400 manuals

Although the results are similar to those produced by an SMT or SGT, they are not a substitute for
rotational geophone testing!
Sensor Tilt

The Sensor Tilt test is processed in the same way as the Sensor pulse. But, since the signals involved
are different, we will see different results.

Sensor Pulse Sensor Tilt

And, as there is no practical way for the program to keep Sensor models, the results do not produce
a Tilt value. This test is included more for research purposes and isn’t going to be much use until
more data is available.
About

If you have any queries or problems with the program, or want to ask me a question about it, be
sure to include the Build Number in your message.

Support

If you find the program useful, please consider making a donation.

Times are hard and beer is expensive.

Change Log
24-September-2017

 Initial Release

12-November-2017, Build 634

 Added CSV output for result listing (Req by JIAM)

 Added Scales and Limits for Field Noise (Req by JIAM)
 Added PDF output and Print options (Req by JIAM)
 Added option to generate Line graphs or Segment Graphs
 Fixed issue where Line Width and Colour was not honoured in Line graph settings
 Improved settings dialog. Enter no longer required in Text box fields
 Added Icons to buttons