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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

The Comprehensive Study Of High Viscosity Friction Reducers In High-Tds And High-Temperature Environments, Xiaojing Ge Jan 2024

The Comprehensive Study Of High Viscosity Friction Reducers In High-Tds And High-Temperature Environments, Xiaojing Ge

Doctoral Dissertations

"High viscosity friction reducers (HVFRs) have been recently gaining more attention and increasing in use, not only as friction-reducing agents but also as proppant carriers. Reusing of produced water has also been driven by both environmental and economic benefits. Currently, most friction reducers on the market are anionic friction reducers, which are fully compatible with most produced water with low to medium level of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) but show a significant drop at high TDS conditions in term of their friction reduction performance in most cases. On the contrary, cationic friction reducers are believed to have better TDS tolerance …


Structural Stability Of Thermosets During Material Extrusion Additive Manufacturing, Stian K. Romberg Dec 2021

Structural Stability Of Thermosets During Material Extrusion Additive Manufacturing, Stian K. Romberg

Doctoral Dissertations

Over the past decade, the scale of polymer additive manufacturing has been revolutionized with machines that print massive thermoplastic parts with greater geometric complexity than can be achieved by traditional manufacturing methods. However, the heat required to print thermoplastics consumes energy and induces thermal gradients that can reduce manufacturing flexibility and final mechanical properties. With the ability to be extruded at room temperature and excellent compatibility with fibers and fillers, thermoset resins show promise to decrease the energy consumption, expand the manufacturing flexibility, and broaden the material palette offered by large-scale polymer additive manufacturing. However, structural instability in the uncured …


Amorphous-Crystalline Brush Block Copolymers: Phase Behavior, Rheology And Composite Design, Gayathri Kopanati Oct 2019

Amorphous-Crystalline Brush Block Copolymers: Phase Behavior, Rheology And Composite Design, Gayathri Kopanati

Doctoral Dissertations

Bottlebrush block copolymers are polymers with chemically distinct polymer side chains grafted onto a common backbone. The unique architecture induced properties make these materials attractive for applications such as photonic materials, stimuli responsive actuators and drug delivery vehicles to name a few. This dissertation primarily investigates the phase transitions and rheological behavior of amorphous-crystalline bottlebrush brush block copolymers and their composites. The temperature induced phase behavior is investigated using time resolved synchrotron X-ray source. Irrespective of volume fraction and backbone length, the samples display strong segregation even at high temperatures (200 °C) and there is no accessible order-disorder transition in …


Rheological Properties Of A Model Soft Solid Nanocomposite, Vijesh Tanna Oct 2018

Rheological Properties Of A Model Soft Solid Nanocomposite, Vijesh Tanna

Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT RHEOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF A MODEL SOFT SOLID NANOCOMPOSITE SEPTEMBER 2018 VIJESH A. TANNA B.S. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA-CHAMPAIGN M.S. UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ph.D. UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Prof. H. Henning Winter The fabrication and physical properties of polymer/clay nanocomposites has received a great deal of interest in both academic and industrial settings. Clay is a natural 2D mineral comprised of stacks of platelets with high aspect ratios held together through electrostatic interactions. Typically, polymer/clay composite are found to have the best physical properties when these clay sheets are randomly dispersed, exfoliated, throughout the polymer matrix. However, …


Wetting Kinetics In Forced Spreading, Amer Mohammad Al-Shareef Jan 2016

Wetting Kinetics In Forced Spreading, Amer Mohammad Al-Shareef

Doctoral Dissertations

"Under dynamic conditions, the dynamic contact angle (the angle that the liquid makes with the solid) of a liquid on a solid surface varies dramatically with substrate velocity from its equilibrium value. Experimental data of the dynamic contact angles for polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS or silicone oil) under air on a glass substrate coated with teflon, for water under PDMS, for solutions of the polymer polyethylene oxide (PEO) under air, for solutions of PEO under PDMS, were obtained to simulate and understand the systems of brine or brine containing a polymer displacing viscous crude. A variety of solid substrates were used other …


Experimental And Modeling Studies On The Formulation Of Stable Lipid Nanoparticle Dispersions, Yihui Yang Mar 2015

Experimental And Modeling Studies On The Formulation Of Stable Lipid Nanoparticle Dispersions, Yihui Yang

Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis presents both experimental and modeling studies on the formulation of stable lipid nanoparticle dispersions. A population balance equation (PBE) model was developed for prediction of the average polymorph content and aggregate size distribution to better understand the undesirable SLN aggregation behavior. Experimental and modeling studies showed that the polymorphic transformation was the rate determining step for my system, SLNs with smaller initial size distributions aggregated more rapidly, and aggregates contained particles with both alpha and beta crystals. Next the effect of different liquid carrier oils on the crystallization and aggregation behavior of tristearin NLC dispersions was investigated. I …


Strategies For Improving Oxygen Transport And Mechanical Strength In Alginate-Based Hydrogels, Joseph C. White Apr 2014

Strategies For Improving Oxygen Transport And Mechanical Strength In Alginate-Based Hydrogels, Joseph C. White

Doctoral Dissertations

Hydrogels have attracted significant interest over the past several decades due to their outstanding versatility as biomaterials. Alginate-based hydrogels are among the most popular studied due to their low cost, biocompatibility, and tunable physical properties. However, as with all hydrogels, persistent oxygen solubility and poor mechanical strength limits their utility for creating macroscopic devices for biomedical use. This thesis presents two strategies for improving oxygen transport and mechanical properties of alginate-based hydrogel. The former involves incorporating perfluorocarbons, hydrophobic compounds with very high oxygen solubility, into the formulation. The perfluorocarbons are stabilized by nonionic surfactants, Pluronics®, and the emulsion is entrapped …


Multi-Scale Simulation Of Linear, Short-Chain Polyethylene Liquids Under Flow Conditions, Jun Mo Kim May 2010

Multi-Scale Simulation Of Linear, Short-Chain Polyethylene Liquids Under Flow Conditions, Jun Mo Kim

Doctoral Dissertations

The rheological and structural properties of polymeric liquids cannot be condensed within a single numerical model. They should be described within hierarchical, multi-level numerical models in which each sub-model is responsible for different time and length scales; atomistic, mesoscopic, and continuum. In this study, the rheological and structural properties of linear, short-chain polyethylene liquids were investigated from the classical atomistic level to the mesoscopic and continuum levels of description. At the atomistic level of description, nonequilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) simulations of linear, short-chain polyethylene liquids spanning from C16H24 to C128H256 were performed to advance our knowledge of fundamental characteristic of …