Journal of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
Volume:55 Issue: 2, Dec 2021

Owing to climate conditions, heavy traffic loads, and increasing axial loads, conventional bitumen/asphalt should be modified. Bituminous materials are also vulnerable to aging during construction and service time of pavement, which will seriously affect the service performance/life of bitumen pavement. To this end, bitumen was modified using styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS), ZnO, TiO2 and ethylene vinylacelate (EVA). Applied methodology was Mixture Design and contents of SBS, ZnO, TiO2 and EVA were considered as independent variables. Response variables followed as: G*/sin OB, G*/sin RTFO, G*/sin PAV, RV, penetration (PEN), softening, ductility, m-value and stiffness. Results of experiments of penetration degree, softening point, and ductility performed on basic bitumen without any additives were 89, 49 °C, and 137, respectively. Effects of independent variables were investigated on response variables using mathematic models and optimized compositions. SBS, ZnO, TiO2 and EVA precursors positively affected the PEN parameter. Manipulated samples possessed penetration range of 48–62 (1/10mm). Maximum softening was reached at the highest EVA and the minimum softening was detected at the largest ZnO and TiO2. Softening point ranged in 59–71 °C. SBS, ZnO, TiO2 and EVA components positively increased ductility and the largest positive effect belonged to SBS. SBS and EVA positively affected G*/sin OB response, whereas ZnO and TiO2 variables negatively decreased it. Dynamic shear rheometric (DSR) data for aged bitumens within short term periods decreased from 52 to 76 °C for all investigated samples. All mentioned modifications were performed to optimize performance of ultimate bitumen from perspectives of softening, ductility, strength, m-value, stiffness, etc.

Determining BPP is one of the critical parameters for the development of oil and gas reservoirs and have this parameter requires a lot of time and money. As a result, this study aims to develop a new predictive model for BPP that uses some available input variables such as solution oil ratio (Rs), gas specific gravity (γg), API Gravity (API). In this study, two innovatively combined hybrid algorithms, DWKNN-GSA and DWKNN-ICA, are developed to predict BPP. The outcomes of the study show the models developed are capable of predicting BPP with promising performance, where the best result was achieved for DWKNN-ICA (RMSE = 0.90276 psi and R2 = 1.000 for the test dataset). Moreover, the performance comparison of the developed hybrid models with some previously developed models revealed that the DWKNN-ICA outperforms the former empirical models with respect to perdition accuracy. In addition to presenting new techniques in the present study, the effect of each of the input parameters on BPP was evaluated using Spearman's correlation coefficient, where the API and Rs have the lowest and the highest impact on the BPP.

In this study, the problem of water production in one of Iran's oil reservoirs will be examined. First, using the flow rate diagram of oil and water production, the problem of water production will be examined according to time. Then, after confirming the occurrence of water production problem, the mechanism of water production will be investigated using Chan diagnostic diagrams and the created sector model. The results of this study indicate that firstly, the problem of water production in the well under study is observed, and secondly, according to the Decline-curve analysis diagrams, Recovery plot, Chan derivative diagram and schematic shape of the fluid flow movement, it shows the mechanism. Water production is a channel flow process under water injection. A gel treatment at early time with 25% of water cut was studied, for that it was modelled a gel treatment after 500 days of production.The main observation is that by increasing the concentration of injected gel, the rate of oil production increases and the rate of water production decreases. The concentration evaluated concentration was from 0 to 100 (lb/bbl) of solution, a stabilization concentration was not observed. Finally, first by identifying the type of water production mechanism for this reservoir in Iran, it has been determined that it has water production through the canal and then by using a simulation of gel injection, the water production rate has decreased and the oil production rate has increased.

The displacement of the contact line (CL) between two arbitrary immiscible flowing fluids was modeled. The present model is valid for a wide range of viscosity ratios of the phases. This is while the previously developed models reported in the literature were devoted to special cases i.e. high viscosity fluid pushing the low viscosity fluid. The present model reveals a direct relationship among the dynamic contact angle, the dimensionless pressure difference in the channel/tube, the Capillary numbers of both phases, and the characteristic length ratios of the channel/tube. The model was validated through the agreement of its predictions for the dynamic contact angle with the available data for a case of water-air flow inside a tube. Then, it was applied to more general cases with different viscosity ratios. According to the results, by increasing the ratio of the viscosity of the advancing phase to the viscosity of the receding phase, the dynamic contact angle reaches more quickly to its final value. It was also seen that by increasing the ratio of the length to the diameter of the tube the evolution of the dynamic contact angle becomes slower. The most interesting point is that a unique behavior is seen and a master curve is achieved if the time becomes dimensionless with a changing parameter (not a fixed parameter). This facilitates the way to predict and interpret the dynamic contact angle in the most general way.

In recent years, universal inhibitors capable of inhibiting both corrosion and salts have attracted much attention in the petroleum industry. In this work, various industrial scale and corrosion inhibitors were used to develop a new mixture of reagents for the prevention of calcium carbonate, barium sulfate, calcium sulfate, and corrosion. The developed mixture of reagents (named DAHAPZ) consists of the following components: DTPMP, ATMP, HEDP, 2-aminoN-decyl-3-phenyl propionamide, 2-propyl-3-ethyl-8-oxychinolin – ZnCl2. When using DAHAPZ, an inhibition efficiency of more than 92% was observed for salts of CaCO3, BaSO4, and CaSO4) and corrosion (for a steel carbon in an acidic environment). After the application of DAHAPZ, the corrosion rate was reduced from 2 mm/year to 0.04 mm/year (an efficiency of 98%). The results of the impedance spectrum test showed that the optimal concentration of DAHAPZ for effective inhibition is 30 ppm. Furthermore, the turbidity test and the measurement of the amount of precipitated salts confirmed the high inhibition performance of DAHAPZ to prevent salt precipitation. DAHAPZ inhibits the salt crystals, which could serve as a protective barrier, thereby reducing the corrosion rate at various temperatures. The deceleration of the crystal growth rate when using DAHAPZ is associated with effective adsorption on the crystals, and a decrease in the crystal surface area for growth. Also, the results of coreflood experiments on the adsorption of the reagents onto the carbonate and sandstone rocks showed that DAHAPZ is more suitable to be used in carbonate reservoirs.

The purpose of this study is to calculate Total Organic Carbon (TOC) values of the Iranian field using a combination of sonic and resistivity logs (Passay method) and neural networks method in the conditions, where the core analysis or well-log measurement does not exist. We compared the resultant TOC with the ones obtained from the geochemical analysis. To correlate between the total organic carbon data and petrophysical log, which are available after logging, Multilayer Perceptron Artificial Neural Network is used. After analyzing 100 cutting samples by using rock -Eval pyrolysis, geochemical parameters have achieved.By using the multi-layer perceptron with Levenberg–Marquardt training algorithm, the TOC with correlation coefficient 0.88 and MSE 1.443 have been provided in the intervals without analyzed samples. Finally, the TOC was estimated by using separation of resistivity and the sonic log, although, with the favorable results in some other fields, the estimation had a correlation coefficient of 51% in this field. Comparing the performance of the multi-layer perceptron with Levenberg–Marquardt training algorithm (with an accuracy of 88%) and results of the Passay method (with an accuracy of 51%) indicated that the neural network is more accurate and has better consistency compared with the empirical formula.

The effect of geometric parameters of the zigzag, rectangular, and serpentine channels on convective heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop was investigated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). In all channels, the same boundary conditions were considered, and the number of steps was equal to 10. The simulations were performed for turbulent flows (liquid water as the operating fluid), and Reynolds number (Re) range between 20000 and 60000 was selected. The zigzag channel showed a best thermal performance and the serpentine channel showed the best hydraulic performance. The thermal-hydraulic performance (THP) factor was employed for comparing the channels. As the complexity of the channels surfaces increased, the two parameters of convective heat transfer coefficient (positive factor) and pressure drop (negative factor) increased simultaneously. Therefore, predictive correlations for friction factor and Nusselt number were presented using genetic algorithm (GA), and the multi-objective optimization was performed to obtain the most appropriate Nusselt number and minimum friction factor as the two basic objective functions. The resulting Pareto set, which includes the optimum geometric dimensions of the heat exchangers, allows a designer to choice the geometries based on higher heat transfer or lower pumping power.

In this experimental study, low velocity impact test with different energy levels was performed on a fiber-metal (FML) structure reinforced with NBR elastomer. The FML structure consisted of a 2024 layer of aluminium as the core, two layers of NBR elastomer on both sides of the aluminium and a composite layer after the NBR layers, which were made by hand layup method. The composite layers were made of bi-direction carbon fiber fabric as well as phenolic resin. Also, the knocker was made from very high hardness and hit the FML sample with various energy levels (50, 58 and 66 joules). Thus, in the present paper, the effect of different composite thicknesses on the front and back of the core against the three impact energies was studied. One of the notable innovations in this work is the use of NBR elastomer, which acts as a reinforcement in withstanding impact loads. Based on the obtained results, the maximum and minimum amount of contact force, absorbed energy, deformation and contact time was related to P ... 2.2 and P … 1.1 samples. By comparing the P … 2.1 and P… 1.2 samples after the impact test, it was shown that P… 2.1 samples has a softer behaviour.

In this paper, the operational impact of three parameters including power of ultrasonic apparatus, size of fennel seeds and experiment time on the extraction yield of Anethole, which is the main considerable component in fennel essential oil and its concentration have been studied through Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction. The ultrasonic extraction of oil from fennel seeds using a solution of 70% water-ethanol was studied at different particle sizes, different ultrasonic powers and three different levels of time. The most effective parameter was particle size, while the experiment time had the least impact on both the efficiency and Anethole concentration as well. As a result, compared to Soxhlet method, the ultrasonic-assisted extraction was more efficient. In this experiment, eighteen constituents were identified for fennel seeds using GC–MS. The major components were Anethole (78.12%), Fenchone (8.81%), Limonene (4.39%), and Estragole (4.52%). Furthermore, the analysis of two quadratic models using the Box-Behnken design (BBD) indicated that the quadratic polynomial model can be applied for estimating the Anethole extraction yield as well as Anethole concentration.

This study optimized the operational parameters of removing SO2 from flue gas via a polymeric hollow fiber membrane contactor (HFMC) using the response surface methodology (RSM). The distilled water and polypropylene hollow fibers were applied as the adsorbent and membrane material, respectively. Three experimental parameters were chosen as independent variables: liquid flow rate, gas flow rate, and initial SO2 concentration. The SO2 removal efficiency was significantly affected by the initial SO2 concentration. The optimal ratio of liquid-to-gas flow rate was found to be 0.25 to reach maximum separation efficiency (98.81%). The optimal value of the liquid flow rate was 33 l/h, and the optimal gas flow rate was 131 l/h. The effect of CO2 presence, module length, fibers number, temperature, and the adsorbent nature were also investigated under optimal values obtained for the ratio of liquid-to-gas flow rate. Results indicated that CO2 presence in the flue gas slightly affects SO2 removal using water as an absorbent in HFCM. Furthermore, it was indicated that the SO2 removal efficiency was a function of the flue gas temperature and number of fibers: it decreased as the temperature rose from 20 to 50°C and the fiber numbers increased from 300 to 1000. This study offers a model to predict the efficiency of SO2 removal using HFMC under different conditions and provides the ground to further explore the industrial applications of this technology.

The flow regimes and the dynamics of the front in miscible displacements are controlled by the interactions between the mechanisms of instability involved in such processes. The instabilities may be driven by unfavorable gravity or mobility ratios or by the heterogeneity of the medium providing favorable paths for the more mobile fluid. In this work, the effect of porous medium heterogeneity with two scales of permeability variations on the frontal instability and fluid mixing have been investigated. The base mode of permeability variations has a smaller wavelength and higher frequency while the imposed mode has a larger wavelength. The effect of such a bimodal heterogeneity on the growth of mixing zone length (MZL) has been studied and the development of the previously recognized flow regimes in layered porous media have been examined. Compared to the unimodal medium comprising the base wave, in the bimodal cases with large contrast between the wavelengths of the two periodic profiles the dominance of each wave length at a different time scale predictably enhances the growth of fingers in the early and late stages. Interestingly and less intuitively, even in cases with close wave numbers between the combined modes faster growth of the mixing zone length is observed. In such cases, the coherence of equal layers in a unimodal layered medium is disturbed by the second wave number resulting in fading of the lateral diffusion regime. However, bimodal heterogeneity may attenuate the instability compared to the unimodal system with the imposed wave’s frequency.

In this paper, the electronic effects of the adsorption of thyroid stimulating hormones (TSH) on two-dimensional structures of graphene and ψ-graphene are theoretically investigated by means of the density functional theory (DFT). Initially, the binding energies of TSH molecules on graphene (both the zigzag and armchair structures) and ψ-graphene are computed at different spatial orientations using the Siesta code. The most stable orientations had the following binding energies: –1.04 eV for triiodothyronine on graphene, –1.25 eV for thyroxine on graphene, –0.97 eV for triiodothyronine on ψ-graphene, and –0.95 eV for thyroxine on ψ-graphene. Subsequent to identifying the most stable orientations, the current-voltage characteristics of graphene and ψ-graphene monolayers, before and after the adsorption of TSH molecules are calculated by the TranSiesta computational software package, using the non-equilibrium Green’s function approach. The adsorption of the TSH molecules on the both graphene structures reduced the passing electric current significantly. The findings show that graphene sheets can be used to synthesize fast responding TSH nano-biosensors.