Engineering Commons^™

Investigation Of Cyclic Gaseous Solvent Injection For Enhanced Oil Recovery In Unconventional Formations, Samuel Asante Afari

Theses and Dissertations

Unconventional resources have been known to hold vast quantities of hydrocarbons. However, exploiting the oil and gas they hold was previously challenging due to their low permeabilities. Recent advances in horizontal well drilling and hydraulic fracturing have enabled oil and gas production from these reservoirs, leading to significant increases in energy supply to meet the growing energy demand. However, despite the relative technological success, considerable obstacles persist; oil production from unconventional wells often declines by more than 20% of their initial production rate within the first two years, leaving significant volumes of residual oil trapped in the formations. This overarching …

Antennas And Wave Propagation In Wireless Body Area Networks: Design And Evaluation Techniques, Ala Alemaryeen

Theses and Dissertations

Recently, fabrication of miniature electronic devices that can be used for wireless connectivity becomes of great interest in many applications. This has resulted in many small and compact wireless devices that are either implantable or wearable. As these devices are small, the space for the antenna is limited. An antenna is the part of the wireless device that receives and transmits a wireless signal. Implantable and wearable antennas are very susceptible to harmful performance degradation caused by the human body and very difficult to integrate, if not designed properly. A designer need to minimize unwanted radiation absorption by the human …

Molecular Dynamics Simulation Of Gas Transport And Adsorption In Ultra-Tight Formations, Yannick Tambe Agbor

Theses and Dissertations

Kerogen, which plays a very important part in reservoir characterization for ultra-tight formations, is also involved in the storage and production of hydrocarbons in shale. In this work, we study the kerogen structure and its interaction with insitu hydrocarbons to fully understand the fluid flow and adsorption mechanisms in the shale. Also the advancement in pore network modelling has greatly helped the understanding of mesoscale fluid flow. In this work, transport of methane in a type II marine environment kerogen model is studied using molecular dynamics simulations. Non Equilibrium Molecular Dynamics Simulations (NEMDS) using GROMACS code and Grand Canonical Monte …

Production Of Mesophase Pitch From Gasified Lignin-Derived Tars, Adedayo O. Idowu

Theses and Dissertations

Lignin tars are created as a by-product of lignin gasification. Significant effort has gone into minimizing tar production. However, no process has been shown to completely eliminate its formation. As a result, the tar is being used to manufacture low value products such as asphalt, or is being used as a fuel in fixed combustion systems.

The research presented here is part of an effort to increase the viability of using lignocellulosic biomass as a feedstock to produce high value products. We tested the postulate that tars derived from lignin could be processed into a mesophase pitch allowable for conversion …

Parkinson's Symptoms Quantification Using Wearable Sensors, Md Nafiul Alam

Theses and Dissertations

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder affecting more than one million people in the United States and seven million people worldwide. Motor symptoms such as tremor, slowness of movements, rigidity, postural instability, and gait impairment are commonly observed in PD patients. Currently, Parkinsonian symptoms are usually assessed in clinical settings, where a patient has to complete some predefined motor tasks. Then a physician assigns a score based on the United Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) after observing the motor task. However, this procedure suffers from inter subject variability. Also, patients tend to show fewer symptoms during clinical visit, …

Reactive Motions In A Fully Autonomous Crs Catalyst 5 Robotic Arm Based On Rgbd Data, Arad Haselirad

Theses and Dissertations

This study proposes a method to perform velocity estimation using motion blur in a single image frame along x and y axes in the camera coordinate system and intercept a moving object with a robotic arm. It will be shown that velocity estimation in a single image frame improves the system's performance. The majority of previous studies in this area require at least two image frames to measure the target's velocity. In addition, they mostly employ specialized equipments which are able to generate high torques and accelerations.

The setup consists of a 5 degree of freedom robotic arm and a …

Development Of A High Performance Mosaicing And Super-Resolution Algorithm, Debabrata Ghosh

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, a high-performance mosaicing and super-resolution algorithm is described. The scale invariant feature transform (SIFT)-based mosaicing algorithm builds an initial mosaic which is iteratively updated by the robust super resolution algorithm to achieve the final high-resolution mosaic. Two different types of datasets are used for testing: high altitude balloon data and unmanned aerial vehicle data. To evaluate our algorithm, five performance metrics are employed: mean square error, peak signal to noise ratio, singular value decomposition, slope of reciprocal singular value curve, and cumulative probability of blur detection. Extensive testing shows that the proposed algorithm is effective in improving …

High Fidelity Chemistry And Radiation Modeling For Oxy-Combustion Scenarios, Hassan A. Abdul Sater

Theses and Dissertations

To account for the thermal and chemical effects associated with the high CO₂ concentrations in an oxy-combustion atmosphere, several refined gas-phase chemistry and radiative property models have been formulated for laminar to highly turbulent systems. This thesis examines the accuracies of several chemistry and radiative property models employed in computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations of laminar to transitional oxy-methane diffusion flames by comparing their predictions against experimental data. Literature review about chemistry and radiation modeling in oxy-combustion atmospheres considered turbulent systems where the predictions are impacted by the interplay and accuracies of the turbulence, radiation and chemistry models. Thus, …

Transient Liquid Phase Bonding Of Titanium-, Iron- And Nickel- Based Alloys, A. H. M. Esfakur Rahman

Theses and Dissertations

The operating temperature of land-based gas turbines and jet engines are ever-increasing to increase the efficiency, decrease the emissions and minimize the cost. Within the engines, complex-shaped parts experience extreme temperature, fatigue and corrosion conditions. Ti-based, Ni-based and Fe-based alloys are commonly used in gas turbines and jet engines depending on the temperatures of different sections. Although those alloys have superior mechanical, high temperature and corrosion properties, severe operating conditions cause fast degradation and failure of the components. Repair of these components could reduce lifecycle costs. Unfortunately, conventional fusion welding is not very attractive, because Ti reacts very easily with …

Mechanical Characterization Of Composite Repairs For Fiber-Glass Wind Turbine Blades, Tanveer Singh Chawla

Theses and Dissertations

While in service, wind turbine blades experience various modes of loading. An example is impact loading in the form of hail or bird strikes, which might lead to localized damage or formation of cracks a few plies deep on the blade surface. One of the methods to conduct repairs on wind turbine blades that are damaged while in service is hand lay-up of the repair part after grinding out the damaged portion and some of its surrounding area. The resin used for such repairs usually differs from the parent plate resin in composition and properties such as gel time, viscosity, …

System Development And Integration Of An Airborne Laser Communications Payload For Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Mariusz Czarnomski

Theses and Dissertations

Free space laser communications provides wide bandwidth and high security capabilities to Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in order to successfully accomplish Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Reconnaissance (IST AR) missions. A practical implementation of a laser-based video communications payload flown by a small U AS aircraft is described as a proof-of-concept. The two-axis gimbal pointing control algorithm calculates the line-of-sight vector in real-time by using Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) and Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) information gathered from the UAS vehicle's autopilot so that the laser transmitter in the airborne payload can accurately track a ground-based photodiode array receiver with …

Development Of A Slide-Rolling Contact Fatigue Tester, Gregory T. Dvorak

Theses and Dissertations

Contact fatigue failure is a common problem experienced in many applications such as bearings, gears and railway tracks. In recent years, research companies have developed finishing processes which aim to improve a component's contact fatigue life. One such process has been patented by REM Chemicals in Texas. Preliminary contact fatigue tests have shown that this superfinishing process could potentially improve a component’s contact fatigue life by 300%. Before this technology can move from the laboratory to an industrial platform, more tests are needed to verify the claim. To the best of the author’s knowledge, no standard process or test machine …

A Structural Study Of Some (H6-Arene)Ml2, First Row, Group Viii, Transition Metal Complexes And Their Derivatives, Stuart Kevin Janikowski

Theses and Dissertations

The structures of five organonickel compounds were determined using x-ray diffraction techniques. This study was conducted to ascertain the relationships between the compound's structures, bonding, and chemical properties. The first structural evidence for discrete complexes containing Ni-SiX3 bonds is (h6-mesitylene)Ni(SiCl3)2 and presented. The compounds (h6-toluene)Ni(SiF3)2, crystallize in space group P21/c with Z = 2. The lattice constants at 23° C are: a = 9.056(2), b = 14.426(1), c = 13. 3 0 3 ( 2) ~, {J = 10 0. 6 9 ( 1 )0 , and a = 11. 3 5 5 ( 3) , b = 11.268(4), c …

A Preliminary Investigation Of Physical-Chemical Treatment Of Slagging Gasifier Aqueous Effluent, Kirk B. Hird

Theses and Dissertations

The feasibility of treating slagging gasifier wastewater by physical-chemical means was studied. Pretreatment and treatment flow schemes were developed by using batch and continuous tests. Results were based mainly on wastewater residual total organic carbon (TOC). A treatment facility was designed and economically evaluated.

It was found that slagging gasifier wastewater is treatable by physical-chemical means using activated carbon and chemical oxidation as the two principal treatment steps. A pretreatment scheme consisting of lime addition, ammonia stripping, and recarbonation-coagu- lation was found to sufficiently purify the raw gasifier liquor so that activated carbon adsorption and chemical oxidation could be applied …

Experiments In The Explosive Pulverization Of North Dakota Lignite, James Marvin Airgood

Theses and Dissertations

During the past several years the United States Bureau of Mines and the University of North Dakota have conducted extensive investigation aimed toward the up-grading of lignite coal. These investigations include steam drying, carbonation, briquetting, and gasification of North Dakota lignite. Research work by both the Bureau of Mines and the University of North Dakota is continuing and expanding at the present time. During the past year the construction and operation of a lignite research laboratory on the University campus has been authorized by the United States government. The operation of this laboratory by the United States Bureau of Mines …