Engineering Commons^™

Evaluation Of Preformed Particle Gels Penetration And Propagation Behavior For A Conformance Control Treatment In Partially Open Conduits, Ahmed Mohamed Aldalfag

Masters Theses

"Preformed particle gels (PPGs) serve as a conformance control agent and have been used widely to control excess water production through conduits, fractures or fracture-like features. This research ranks the parameters that impact PPG resistance to water flow in partially opened conduits. Experiments were conducted to examine the effect of brine concentration, PPG injection pressure, back pressure, reducing water salinity and matrix permeability on PPG resistance to water flow through conduits, PPG penetration to the matrix. PPGs were swelled in different concentration brines and were injected into the conduits at a few designed injection pressures. PPG swollen in high brine …

Determination Of Significant Parameters That Drive Fracture Optimization In The Glauconite Formation, Southern Chile, Ghassan Saleh Mahdi Alqatrani

Masters Theses

"The Glauconite Formation in the Magallanes Basin of Southern Chile is a clay- and silica-rich formation with low permeability. As with many of the unconventional resources, the Glauconite Formation requires a hydraulic fracturing operation to enhance the productivity of the wells in this area.

Data and pertinent information of fracturing, completion, and reservoir quality parameters along with post-fracture production data were collected to initiate a database of nearly 70 wells, to be used to develop a better understanding of the fracturing behavior, optimize the well stimulation, and overcome the major barriers in the hydraulic fracturing of the Glauconite Formation. The …

The Viability Of Advantg Deterministic Method For Synthetic Radiography Generation, Andrew Albert Bingham

Masters Theses

"Time sensitive and high resolution image simulations are needed for synthetic radiography generation. The standard stochastic approach requires lengthy run times with poor statistics at higher resolutions. The investigation of the viability of a deterministic approach to synthetic radiography image generation was explored. The aim was to analyze a computational time decrease over the stochastic method. ADVANTG was compared to MCNP in multiple scenarios including a Benchtop CT prototype, to simulate high resolution radiography images. By using ADVANTG deterministic code to simulate radiography images the computational time was found to decrease over 10 times compared to the MCNP stochastic approach"--Abstract, …

Survey And Data Analysis Of Weak Gel Treatments In Injection Wells, Zhuxing Chen

Masters Theses

"Excessive water production is a major concern in mature reservoirs. Weak gels have been applied in injection wells for in-depth profile modification. However, the data range and distribution of each parameter that affects performance of weak gels have not been studied thoroughly.

China has the largest amount of chemical-based conformance control treatments. This paper presents a summary of comprehensive data ranges and distributions for weak gel treatments based on the laboratory experiments and field applications in China from 2001 to 2010. The data set includes 76 cases compiled from China Academic Journals papers. In this study, reservoir properties, gel properties …

Deformation Processes At The Leading Edge Of The Sevier Fold And Thrust Belt, Southwest Utah, William Joseph Michael Chandonia

Masters Theses

"Deformation processes leading to formation and abandonment of 'triangle zones' along the leading edge of the Sevier fold and thrust belt are investigated near Kanarraville, Utah through construction of a detailed geologic map and cross-section along Spring Creek. Here the eastern limb of the Kanarra fold, a Sevier structure, is well exposed along the Hurricane Cliffs due to uplift and erosion of the footwall of the Hurricane Fault. The east-verging Kanarra fold changes from upright to overturned within Spring Creek. Within the fold limb, parasitic folds, minor thrust faults, and duplex structures result in local tectonic overthickening of units and …

Towards A Better Understanding Of Indoor Exposure To Air Pollutants: Window Opening Occurrence In U.S. Residences, Gauri Dilip Date

Masters Theses

"Opening a window dramatically alters how we are exposed to air pollutants. Online questionnaire surveys were deployed to assess window-opening occurrence of the occupants of US homes. This information will be used to better quantify population exposure to pollutants of indoor and outdoor origin. Frequency distributions of demographics were generated which showed percentages of respondents who participated in the surveys from categories including gender, race, household income and occupancy. In April 2016, 49.3% of the people surveyed opened their windows for at least 1 hour in a day. This increased to 52.5% in September 2016 and reduced considerably to 24.4% …

Advanced Buffer Materials For Indoor Air Co₂ Control In Commercial Buildings, Pavithra Ethi Rajan

Masters Theses

"The following describes a novel passive approach to control the indoor CO₂ levels in enclosed spaces, primarily focusing on commercial buildings. Amine impregnated silica sorbents were identified as suitable candidates and synthesized; the amine loading ratio was varied to create a range of materials. These samples along with other commercial zeolite candidates have been tested over a range of CO₂ concentrations to determine the CO₂ adsorption capacity in laboratory systems and under simulated room conditions. The research work also focuses on the CO₂ desorption capacity of the candidate adsorbents. The desorption is allowed to occur gradually …

The Use Of Ceramic Water Filters Under Pressure In An In-Line Water Pumping System, Travis Dean Gardner

Masters Theses

"Ceramic pot filters (CPFs) have proven an effective point of use (POU) filter due to their relative low cost, ease to manufacture, and effectiveness at treating contaminated water. These filters are used by individual homes, and sometimes multiple filters are needed for each home in order to produce enough water for the family's household. If these filters could be used in-line with a pumping system or elevated storage tank, water could be filtered and used on demand for a community in an economically feasible way. However, CPFs are too fragile to use under pressure due to the weak points where …

Design And Analysis Of A Passive Heat Removal System For A Small Modular Reactor Using Star Ccm+, Raymond Michael Fanning

Masters Theses

"Next generation nuclear power plants, specifically small modular reactor designs, are the best alternative to fossil fuels for power generation due to their power density and low carbon emissions and constant awareness of safety concerns. A promising safety feature of new designs is the removal of heat by passive systems in accident scenarios. The passive systems require no moving parts and no intervention by personnel. These systems must be accurately simulated for better understanding of the heat transport phenomena: natural convection cooling. Due to the fact that most work developing these passive heat removal systems are proprietary information, a passive …

Micro-Grid Implementation Of A Rooftop Photovoltaic System, Pranav Nitin Godse

Masters Theses

"In recent years, solar power has been a popular form of renewable energy. This research conducts a cost analysis in implementing a rooftop photovoltaic system as part of an energy management schema for a university campus. The proposed system would be installed on the roof of one of the largest buildings on campus at Missouri University of Science and Technology, Toomey Hall; the objective function of the research involves reducing dependence on conventional energy sources on campus. Toomey Hall houses the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) and is the largest academic unit on campus. Considering the vast expanse …

Bio-Inspired Flow Fields For Pem Fuel Cells- Decoupling Pressure And Distribution Effects On Performance And Identifying Design Opportunities, Joshua David Heck

Masters Theses

"The performance of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs) is significantly impacted by flow distributor geometry. The effects of flow distributor geometry on PEMFCs was explored in two ways in this study. Firstly, the relative effects of pressure and distribution characteristics of different flow fields on fuel cell unit and system level performance were considered. A method of decoupling these effects was proposed and demonstrated by application to the traditional serpentine and parallel flow field designs.The performance of these two designs were modeled computationally and it was shown that, of the 17% better performance of the serpentine design, 12% was …

Combined Flue Gas Cleanup Process For Simultaneous Removal Of SoX, NoX, And Co₂ -- A Techno-Economic Analysis, Amit Narendrasing Hajari

Masters Theses

"Flue gas cleanup often requires the removal of SO_x, NO_x and CO₂ in separate units before atmospheric emission. The step-wise treatment process currently in place incurs significant cost and energy penalty. A single-step adsorption process based on pressure swing adsorption (PSA) by which these impurities are removed is envisioned as an efficient means of flue gas cleanup that can be applied relatively easily. In this study, the technological and economic feasibility of a single-step separation process in which SO_x, NO_x and CO₂ are simultaneously removed from flue gas streams are assessed. Capital …

Cloth-Air Partitioning Of Oxybenzone, Jonathan T. Hill

Masters Theses

"Clothing has been proven to be a significant accumulator of chemicals from the air. Semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) have a high affinity towards textiles, and measuring the equilibrium partition coefficient between cloth and air (K_cloth-air) for SVOCs is crucial in predicting human exposure to these compounds. This study aims to quantify K_cloth-air for oxybenzone to contribute to a larger human exposure experiment carried out at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). K_cloth-air for oxybenzone was calculated using data collected from the exposure chamber at DTU and from performing extractions of oxybenzone in fabric samples from the …

Cfd Validation And Scaling Of Condensation Heat Transfer, Varun Kalra

Masters Theses

"A CFD study was performed using STAR-CCM+ to validate the software for its competence in the prediction and scaling of condensation heat transfer in the presence of air acting as a non-condensable gas. Three vertical concentric tube heat exchanger geometries with different diameters were studied in the CFD analysis. It was seen that the steam bulk temperatures predicted by STAR-CCM+ closely matched the experimental data. However, the temperatures of outer wall of the steel condenser tubes showed a deviation of 2% to 11% from the experimental values. The error in adiabatic water wall temperatures were found to range from 18% …

Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle Load Profile Estimation With Opportunity Charging, Reza Kazem Sharif Sharifi

Masters Theses

"This thesis focuses on the load profile analysis of the plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), examining two different scenarios. In the first scenario, the battery of a PHEV is charged at the final arrival time, and the arrival time analysis has a minute accuracy. In the second scenario, opportunity charging, which refers to the stop-time between two trips, is used for charging the battery of the vehicle. However, if the stop-time between two trips is less than 30 minutes, the duration is not counted as an opportunity charging and it is filtered. The results of the two scenarios are compared, …

Spectrum Analyzer Based Phase Measurement For Emi Scanning Applications, Shubhankar Marathe

Masters Theses

"Often Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) scanning applications require phase and magnitude information for the creation of equivalent radiation models and for far-field predictions. Magnitude information can be obtained using a spectrum analyzer (SA), which is relatively inexpensive compared to phase resolving instruments such as oscilloscopes (scope) and vector network analyzers (VNA). The study focusses on the development of a near-field scanning method using a SA to measure the phase of the device under test (DUT) signals.

The first part deals with the development of the method in software simulation tools and testing it under standard test conditions. The second part deals …

Generating Fast And Accurate Compliance Reports For Various Data Rates, Srinath Penugonda

Masters Theses

"As the demands on the industry data rates have increased there is a need for interoperable interfaces to function flawlessly. Added to this complexity, the number of I/O data lines are also increasing making it more time consuming to design and test. This in general leads to creating of compliance standards to which interfaces must adhere. The goal of this theses is to aid the Signal Integrity Engineers with a better and fast way of rendering a full picture of the interface compliance parameters.

Three different interfaces at various data rates were chosen. They are: 25Gbps Very Short Reach (VSR) …

Hydraulic Conductivity Testing Of Cement-Bentonite Mixes For Use In Annular Well Seals, Amy Lynn Norval

Masters Theses

"Grout is the material used in the annulus of water supply and monitoring wells to prevent movement of water from adjacent formations or from the land surface into the well. Grout is critical for preventing cross-contamination of aquifers through a borehole when a single well penetrates multiple aquifers and for protecting aquifers from surface contamination. The composition and emplacement of grout is regulated in most states, with standard mixes of bentonite and cement being the most widely used types of grout. Despite widespread adoption of grout regulations, surprisingly little literature is available to describe the effectiveness of different grout mixtures. …

Mold Flux Crystallization And Mold Thermal Behavior, Elizabeth Irene Peterson

Masters Theses

"Mold flux plays a small but critical role in the continuous casting of steel. The carbon-coated powder is added at the top of the water-cooled copper mold, over time it melts and infiltrates the gap between the copper mold and the solidifying steel strand. Mold powders serve five primary functions: (1) chemical insulation, (2) thermal insulation, (3)lubrication between the steel strand and mold, (4) absorption of inclusions, and (5)promotion of even heat flux. All five functions are critical to slab casting, but surface defect prevention is primarily controlled through even heat flux. Glassy fluxes have high heat transfer and result …

Vegetation Based Assessment And Monitoring Tools For Landfill Leachate Treatment And Fugitive Plumes, Rahul Sukharia

Masters Theses

"Solid waste and leachate generation from solid waste landfills has a legacy of detrimental and toxic impacts on the environment. Disposal practices are expensive, failure prone and have not been able to keep up with the pace of disposal of toxic compounds. In general, a landfill acts as a "bathtub" with infiltration of water through the landfill cover into the landfill, reacting with the waste and transferring toxic components into the leachate. Irrigating the evapotranspiration (ET) covers with leachate collected from the landfill has been developed and applied. Such methods can keep the leached pollutants in a loop, which reduces …

Evaluation Of Swelling And Re-Swelling Of Preformed Particle Gels (Ppg) When Exposed To Co₂, Sujay Suresh

Masters Theses

"Long term water/gas flooding induces high permeability channels in reservoirs. Reservoir heterogeneity becomes the most prominent challenge faced in mature oil fields. Gel treatment has been a proven solution to counter the problem of reservoir heterogeneity, to provide in-depth treatment and improve the sweep efficiency for reservoirs. Preformed particle gels (PPGs) were developed as an alternative to in-situ gels as they preferentially penetrate and shutoff high permeability zones, leaving the low permeability zones undamaged. These gels have been predominantly used in water flooding projects, but have not been employed in carbon dioxide (CO₂) flooding projects. CO₂ Resistant …

Data Analysis Of Lane Merge And Lane Shift Sign Configurations In A Freeway Workzone, Satwinder Singh Thind

Masters Theses

"In this study, driver responses to alternative lane shift and lane merge signs are analyzed and compared using a driving simulation system. In particular, driver responses to the lane merge signs proposed by the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) are compared to the current lane merge signs recommended by the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) and driver responses to the lane shift signs proposed by MoDOT are compared to current lane shift signs recommended by MUTCD. The driving simulation system is composed of a driving simulator and a PC with data recording program such that the position coordinates, …

Extending Time Series Forecasting Methods Using Functional Principal Components Analysis, Isaac Michael Wagner-Muns

Masters Theses

"Traffic volume forecasts are used by many transportation analysis and management systems to better characterize and react to fluctuating traffic patterns. Most current forecasting methods do not take advantage of the underlying functional characteristics of the time series to make predictions. This paper presents a methodology that uses Functional Principal Components Analysis (FPCA) to create smooth and differentiable daily traffic forecasts. The methodology is validated with a data set of 1,813 days of 15 minute aggregated traffic volume time series. Both the FPCA based forecasts and the associated prediction intervals outperform traditional Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) based methods"--Abstract, …

Characterization Of The Rectification Behaviour Of In-Amps And Estimating The Near Field Coupling From Smps Circuits To A Nearby Antenna Using Dipole Moments, Chunyu Wu

Masters Theses

"This thesis discusses two parts.

In the first part, the rectification behavior of popular instrumentation amplifiers is measured in both common mode and single-ended RF noise injection. It is recommended that AD8221 be used in common mode RF noise injection environment. And AD8220 and AD8429 are recommended in single-ended RF noise injection environment. The mechanism of RF noise rectification inside in-amps is also discussed. It is verified that rectification mainly happens at the non-inverting input of two op-amps in the first stage of an in-amp. The DC voltage difference between inverting input and non-inverting input of the in-amp is further …

Dc-Dc Converter Based Photovoltaic Simulator With A Double Current Mode Controller, Weichao Zhang

Masters Theses

"This thesis presents the performance of a DC-DC converter based with current mode controller photovoltaic (PV) simulator which emulates the output characteristics of a real PV module. A portable PV simulator prototype of 85 W is examined in terms of its steady state IV curve matching capacity and the convergence time corresponding to step change in current source load, voltage source load, and insolation levels. The current-voltage (IV) characteristics of the PV module are implemented as a look-up-table (LUT) which determines the reference output current from measured output voltage. A Thevenin Equivalent Method approach to PV arrays analysis is also …

A Physics-Based Approach For Power Integrity In Multi-Layered Pcbs, Biyao Zhao

Masters Theses

"Developing a power distribution network (PDN) for ASICs and ICs to achieve the low-voltage ripple specifications for current digital designs is challenging with the high-speed and low-voltage ICs. Present methods are typically guided by best engineering practices for low impedance looking into the PDN from the IC. A pre-layout design methodology for power integrity in multi-layered PCB PDN geometry is proposed in the thesis. The PCB PDN geometry is segmented into four parts and every part is modelled using different methods based on the geometry details of the part. Physics-based circuit models are built for every part and the four …

Processing, Microstructure, And Properties Of Engineered Diboride Structures, Connor Charles Wittmaier

Masters Theses

"The mechanical properties and processing parameters of boride ceramics in foam and laminate architectures were evaluated. The ceramic reticulated foam was produced through a polymer substrate replication technique and the hardness and compressive strength were tested. The laminate structure was tested to evaluate the flexure strength and work of fracture as a function of temperature.

The foam architecture was produced using a TiB₂ slurry coating on a polyurethane reticulated foam preform. Foams sintered to 2150⁰C displayed an average grain size of 8.9 ± 7.3 µm, and a hardness of 17.3 ± 2.4 GPa. Crush testing foams were sintered at …

Comparison Of Voltage Regulation Between Sst And Conventional Transformers In High Penetration Pv Power Systems, Gautham Ashokkumar

Masters Theses

"Solid state transformers (SST) are power electronic transformers combined with high-frequency conventional transformers and control circuitry capable of delivering high performance and flexible power control capabilities. This thesis focuses on analyzing the performance of SSTs in a distribution system with photovoltaic (PV) injection. In order to validate the performance of SSTs, average value models are used on the IEEE 34 bus distribution feeder network scaled to 12.47 kV. SST voltage profiles on the load side are analyzed and the unity power factor capabilities are demonstrated. This is followed by the study of voltage profiles on the primary side of the …

Shortest-Distance And Minimum-Cost Self-Charging Path Problems: Formulations And Application, Marc Monroe Teeter

Masters Theses

"In this study, self-charging paths for an electric bus are analyzed. Wireless-power-transfer technologies, when integrated on a road network, enable dynamic charging of electric vehicles. Roads implemented with a wireless-power-transfer technology are referred to as electric-roads in this study. Electric vehicles traversing on electric-roads, therefore, can be dynamically charged. This can further eliminate the need for static charging, i.e., the electric vehicle will not need to stop for charging.

This thesis analyzes the design of transit routes for an electric-bus so that the electric-bus is charged by only electric-roads. Specifically, the focus is on designing a path, which passes through …

Development Of A Variogram Approach To Spatial Outlier Detection Using A Supplemental Digital Elevation Model Dataset, Zane Daniel Helwig

Masters Theses

"When developing a ground water model, the quality of the dataset should first be evaluated. Spatial outliers can lead to predictions which are not representative of actual conditions. In order to isolate misrepresentative points, a method is presented which examines the experimental variogram of a ground water elevation dataset. To define a threshold variance between pairs of ground water elevation measures, ground elevation values from a digital elevation model (DEM) are used to determine a maximum reasonable variance expected to occur on the experimental variogram. To determine appropriate DEM parameters, a separate study was also done which observed characteristic behavior …