Chemical Engineering Commons^™

Ethics Exercises For Civil, Environmental, And Geological Engineers, Paul Michael Santi

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The practices of civil, environmental, and geological engineering share many common ethical dilemmas. These fields typically require extensive interaction with clients and regulatory agencies, while dealing with unpredictable earth materials for design and uncertain design parameters. Consequently, a capstone design course must address not only technical issues, but also a wide range of ethical and behavioral issues. This study presents a series of exercises used in the classroom to teach these issues through dealing with "gray" ethical areas, concepts of advocacy and the use of compromise, relating specific stories to global concepts, proper behavior in the corporate environment, and the …

Predicting The Unconfined Compressive Strength Of The Breathitt Shale Using Slake Durability, Shore Hardness And Rock Structural Properties, Engin C. Koncagül, Paul M. Santi

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Compressive strength is the most widely used design parameter in the construction industry and in rock engineering. For example, Bieniawski [Bieniawski, Z.T., Estimating the strength of rock materials, Is. J. S. Afr. Inst. Min. Metall., 1974, 74, 312-320.] reported that mining engineers request the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) more often than any other rock property. However, standards set for specimen preparation are very demanding. Therefore, it is quite difficult and sometimes impossible to fulfill these requirements using weak rocks and especially shales. This paper evaluates the use of the slake durability and Shore hardness tests to estimate UCS, based on …

Magma Traps And Driving Pressure: Consequences For Pluton Shape And Emplacement In An Extensional Regime, John Patrick Hogan, Jonathan D. Price, M. Charles Gilbert

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The level of emplacement and final form of felsic and mafic igneous rocks of the Wichita Mountains Igneous Province, southwestern Oklahoma, U.S.A. Are discussed in light of magma driving pressure, lithostatic load, and crustal magma traps. Deposition of voluminous A-type rhyolites upon an eroded gabbroic substrate formed a subhorizontal strength anisotropy that acted as a crustal magma trap for subsequent rising felsic and mafic magma. Intruded along this crustal magma trap are the A-type sheet granites (length/thickness 100:1) of the Wichita Granite Group, of which the Mount Scott Granite sheet is typical, and smaller plutons of biotite bearing Roosevelt Gabbro. …

Optical Digital Fragmentation Measuring Systems -- Inherent Sources Of Error, Norbert H. Maerz, Wei Zhou

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Automated optical imaging systems of measuring fragmentation are increasingly being used in the mining, comminution, and materials handling industries. These methods have been well received in many of the industries involved. Considering that in many of these applications there are no alternative ways of sizing material, having even a rudimentary measurement of size distributions allows evaluations of explosive, blast design, detonator performance, crusher and milling performance, and material degradation due to transport.

Optical methods have inherent limitations, which reflect on accuracy, precision, and reproducibility of measurement results. This stems from the fact that there are myriads of variables, which affect …

Methods For Predicting Shale Durability In The Field, Paul Michael Santi, Jerry D. Higgins

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Durability of shales and other weak rock is an important parameter describing the material's susceptibility to breakdown upon exposure to water or during construction work. While laboratory methods have been developed to measure durability, no correlations between laboratory results and simple field tests have been determined. The results of this study show that certain field parameters can predict slake durability with acceptable accuracy. The recommended field tests, in order of desirability, are slake index, jar slake, hammer rebound, and NGI "Q" value. Single variable and multiple variable linear regression equations are given, including equations conservatively modified so that 95% of …

Improving The Jar Slake, Slake Index, And Slake Durability Tests For Shales, Paul M. Santi

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This study proposes modifications to three shale durability tests to improve reproducibility, reduce the level of effort required, and better correlate the test to actual slaking characteristics. Modifications to the jar slake test reduced test variability by one-third, offering a substantial improvement in consistency, with only a slight loss in the ability of the test to predict slake durability. Analysis showed that slake index test error could be reduced or at least pinpointed by testing groups of samples, rather than single samples. Furthermore, the wet-sieving procedure should be more carefully defined. Analysis of correlations between single- and multiple-cycle slake durability …

Relative Permeability Effects On The Migration Of Steamflood Saturation Fronts, A. Erkal, Daopu Thompson Numbere

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The effects of various relative permeability-saturation relationships on the movement of water saturation fronts during steam flooding is investigated. Empirical correlations, curve fitting and spline interpolation functions are used to represent the relative permeability data. The effects of these correlations on water saturation movement and ultimately on oil recovery performance are compared. It was observed that only the spline function is able to adequately represent a given set of data throughout its saturation range. All the other correlations fit the given data well only at high water saturations and fit poorly at the low saturations. Furthermore, the correlations converge at …

Petrochemical Analysis By Remote Fiber-Optic Raman Spectroscopy And Partial Least Squares Regression Analysis, Philip Edmund Flecher Jr.

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses & Dissertations

A dispersive Raman system with charge coupled device (CCD) detection, distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) diode laser excitation, and a fiber optic probe has been developed for the rapid analysis of petrochemicals and fuels. Initially, mock petroleum fuels with analyte concentrations from 1.S - 16% were prepared and analyzed with the system. The inability of the original index guided diode laser to maintain a constant frequency during the mock petroleum analysis was a recurrent problem. The DBR laser was subsequently shown to have stability superior to index guided lasers, and was used in the remainder of the research.

Real gasoline samples …

Tracking Thermal Saturation Fronts By A High Level Pc Programming Language, A. Erkal, Daopu Thompson Numbere

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents a PC based alternative procedure for determining the water saturations within the hot water zone of a thermal project for use in analytical oil recovery calculations. Conventional analytical calculation of oil recovery under steam and hot water injection requires the tracking of the movements of the saturations advancing within the variable-temperature hot-water zone. This involves an adaptation of the Buckley-Leverett theory to this variable temperature zone after dividing it into a number of constant temperature or isothermal zones. If the number exceeds two, the calculation can become very tedious unless done with a computer program. FORTRAN programs …

Skin Effects Due To Perforations -- A Study Of Analysis Techniques, Jon Michael Gibbs

Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Experience Program (OURE)

Until 1991, two methods could be used to evaluate the skin effect due to perforations, the Brons and Marting Method and the Harris Method. Due to the simplicity of the technique, the Brons and Marting Method has been the preferred method of use in the petroleum industry. However, with the recent development of a third technique to evaluate the skin effect due to perforations, the need has arisen to evaluate each of these techniques to determine which method is the most accurate under given conditions. This paper reviews and compares each of the three methods for evaluating the perforations skin. …

High-Pressure Wateijet Technology: A Review And Design Of High-Pressure Hybrid Drillbits, Azmi Zainal Adnan

Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Experience Program (OURE)

The petroleum industry has seen many technological advances since oil was first discovered in the 19th century. Some of the current technological advances in the industry include cuttings transport, drillbit design, logging, and horizontal and directional drilling. Currently, research projects are being done at UMR to find ways to further reduce drilling costs and develop new technology that could improve the drilling effectiveness. One such project is the development of high- pressure waterjet / hybrid bits to replace the conventional mechanical drillbits. In this design, the advantages of waterjet penetration are combined with those of mechanical teeth cutting action..

At …

Sporomorphs And Palynological Interpretations Of Lower Oligocene Strata From The Eastern Gulf Coast, U.S.A., Lisa M. Reeves

Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Experience Program (OURE)

The Vicksburg Group in the eastern Gulf Coast of the United States belongs to one of the most complete and continuous Paleogene strata in the world. Previous studies in this region have neglected the rich palynomorph assemblages of the Lower Oligocene units of the Vicksburg Group. Four samples from Wayne County Mississippi were analyzed for palynological information on the Vicksburg Group. The initial objective of the study was to understand the principles of palynology and the basis for sporomorph identification. A minimum of 300 specimens were counted per slide to determine the distribution of sporomorphs in the sediments. Two hundred …

Interactive Multimedia Applications For The Correlations Of Petroleum Fluids Properties, Herman Smith Iii

Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Experience Program (OURE)

Interactive Multimedia Applications for the Correlations of Petroleum Fluids Properties is a truly interactive and multimedia computer application designed to better help students taking the class "The Properties of Petroleum Fluids", Petroleum Engineering 141. This computer program incorporates error and information voice messages, control over three different computer applications (HyperCard 2.2, Mathcad V3.1, and DeskPaint™ V3.2), three-dimensional multi-coloration, pop-up graphics, directional buttons, object/label-oriented programming, and floating palettes. This creates one computer application to calculate petroleum properties versus the use of multiple, often crowded graphs.

Assessment Of Environmental Implications Of Abandoned Oil And Gas Wells, Donald L. Warner, Cary L. Mcconnell

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A detailed study was made of the potential for abandoned oil and gas wells in the Lower Tuscaloosa sand of Mississippi and Louisiana to act as conduits for movement of saline water from the Lower Tuscaloosa into underground sources of drinking water (USDW's). Finite-difference numerical modeling determined the extent that water might be forced from the Lower Tuscaloosa sand into a USDW as a result of injection into the Lower Tuscaloosa. Within the range of conditions modeled, water from the Lower Tuscaloosa never traveled into a USDW. On the basis of the modeling, we concluded that it is unlikely that …

Structural, Depositional, And Diagenetic Controls On Reservoir Development: St. Peter Sandstone, Newaygo County, Michigan, Mark S. Caldwell

Masters Theses

Enhanced reservoir quality in the Middle Ordovician St. Peter Sandstone is observed in gas bearing zones in wells located on domal structures. Geometry and degree of this enhanced porosity development is the result of the interplay of structural, depositional, and diagenetic controls. An integrated subsurface study of the Woodville/Goodwell field area was performed in order to document controls on hydrocarbon accumulation.

Recurrent structural growth of domal features throughout the Paleozoic is well documented by isopach mapping. Burial and thermal history studies indicate that hydrocarbons were generated in Ordovician aged source rocks during late Devonian to early Mississippian time, and accumulated …

Removal Of Chlorine From Chlorine-Nitrogen Mixture In A Film Of Liquid Water, Sarwan S. Sandhu

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

In industry there are many examples of absorption of a gas with or without chemical reaction in the liquid phase. In physical absorption, a particular gaseous component is removed from a gas mixture due to its larger solubility in the liquid phase solvent. The removal of butane and pentane from a refinery gas mixture by a heavy oil in the liquid phase is an example of physical absorption. In absorption with chemical reaction, the gaseous component to be removed transfers across the gas-liquid interface due to a difference in the bulk chemical potentials or concentrations in the two phases. The …

Sedimentology Of The Bedford-Berea Sequence (Early Mississippian), Williams Field, Michigan, David Alan Balthazor

Masters Theses

The Berea Sandstone has produced in excess of 1.6 million barrels of oil in the Williams field since discovery in 1980. Seven lithofacies are identified from conventional core in the Bedford-Berea sequence. These facies are interpreted as deltaic deposits comprising prodelta (Bedford Shale), delta front, destructive marine shale, abandoned distributary channel-fill, interdistributary bay-fill, transgressive marine sandstone, and marine shale (Sunbury Shale) facies. Passive channel-fill facies truncate reservoir sandstone bodies and compartmentalize the field NW-SE across the trend of the northwestplunging anticline.

The two reservoir facies in the Williams field are the delta front and transgressive marine sandstones. The sandstone framework …

The Fractal Dimension As A Measure Of The Roughness Of Rock Discontinuity Profiles, Y. H. Lee, J. R. Carr, David J. Barr, Charles J. Haas

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

An important factor in the analysis of deformation and failure of rock masses along discontinuities is the roughness of the jointing surfaces. The fractal dimension is proposed as a method of objectively quantifying the roughness profile of such discontinuities. With this method much less engineering judgement and experience are required in determining the surface roughness,sb than is required for other methods such as the widely used joint roughness coefficient (JRC) suggested by the International Society for Rock Mechanics [1] (Int. J. Rock. Mech. Min. Sci. & Geomech. Abstr. 15, 319-368, 1978). The fractal dimension, suggested by Mandelbrot [2] (Fractals-Form, Chance …

Paraffin Deposition Property Measurement Using Differential Scanning Calorimetry, Kevin Lynn Thornsberry

Masters Theses

Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) has been used in past studies to identify the cloud points of diesel fuels, lube oils, jet fuels etc. and it has been assumed that its application extends to all paraffinic hydrocarbons. To verify this and to investigate the possible application of Differential Scanning Calorimetry to the production phase of the petroleum industry, the onset of wax crystallization is compared with ASTM cloud point for a number of paraffinic mixtures including a variety of crude oils. Results show cloud point can be determined for crudes using DSC. Additionally, wax content can be found on a known …

Improved Streamline-Generating Technique That Uses The Boundary (Integral) Element Method, Daopu Thompson Numbere, D. Tiab

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The boundary element method (BEM) has been used to generate streamlines for homogeneous and sectionally homogeneous reservoirs having irregular boundaries. This technique is superior to earlier methods that use 'image wells' to simulate the reservoir boundary, especially for cases where the reservoir boundary is irregularly shaped. It has wider applicability to different kinds of reservoirs and eliminates the need for trial-and-error solutions. The errors caused by discretization and numerical approximation arise on and adjacent to the boundaries only, therefore the pressures and pressure gradients on which the streamlines are derived can be calculated with very high accuracy in the interior …

Performance Predictions For Oil Reservoirs Under Water Influx, Briareus Mitchell Wilkinson

Masters Theses

"The intent of this thesis is to develop a program that will give reasonable recovery predictions for oil reservoirs under water influx. The main advantage is to avoid the massive storage and computational requirements of numerical simulators while achieving roughly comparable results. There are many methods already in existence that have not received their full benefit, mainly because they were developed prior to the recent advances of the computer age. This thesis therefore brings some already proven methods together with new techniques in a program which, with the aid of the computer, stimulates new life in these methods. The main …

Statistical Analysis Of A Compound Power-Law Model For Repairable Systems, Max Engelhardt, Lee J. Bain

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Conclusions - A compound (mixed) Poisson distribution is sometimes used as an alternative to the Poisson distribution for count data. Such a compound distribution, which has a negative binomial form, occurs when the population consists of Poisson distributed individuals, but with intensities which have a gamma distribution. A similar situation can occur with a repairable system when failure intensities of each system are different. A more general situation is considered where the system failures are distributed according to nonhomogeneous Poisson processes having Power Law intensity functions with gamma distributed intensity parameter. If the failures of each system in a population …

Phase Equilibria From Pvt Measurements For Carbon Dioxide, Water And N-Decane, Michael Nduka Okafor

Doctoral Dissertations

"Phase equilibrium properties for the carbon dioxide - water - n-decane system were determined from pressure-temperature-volume (PVT) measurements. PVT properties were also obtained for pure carbon dioxide and water, and the binary mixtures of carbon dioxide - water and carbon dioxide - n-decane. The experiments were conducted at temperatures of 313.17, 353.15 and 393.15 Kelvin, and at pressures from 37 to 416 bar. Measurements for the mixtures were terminated when complete miscibility was observed.

The Perturbed-Hard-Chain (PHC) equation of state developed by Gmehling et al. (1979) was chosen to correlate the measured data because of its ability to handle the …

A Two-Dimensional, Three-Phase Reservoir Simulator Using The Impes Formulation, Ralph Ross Roesler

Masters Theses

"A numerical model for two dimensional, three-phase fluid flow has been developed using the IMPES formulation. Reservoir heterogeneities have been included, such as areal variations in porosity, permeability, thickness, and depth from a reference point. The model can also solve the problem of variable bubble points.

To check the accuracy of the model, a comparison was made with the Buckley-Leverett technique of predicting waterflood performance. The reservoir in the comparison is a 40 acre five spot with an initial gas saturation of 15 percent. The study shows that the two models are in good agreement, except for differences due to …

A Purchase Estimator For Oil And Gas Reserves, Ronald Ernest Robbins

Masters Theses

"A computerized means for analyzing the profitability and purchase potential of producing oil and gas properties was developed. LOTUS 1- 2-3, a computerized spreadsheet package, was utilized in this development. The basic input data required for the implementation of the purchase estimator (BUYOUT) are the forecasts of production, price, and expense. BUYOUT itself is composed of three separate, but interactive, parts: and the system macro. the profitability model, the acquisition table,

A before federal income tax cash-flow model and several economic indicators constitute the profitability model. The profitability model is then fully interactive with an acquisition table which contains six …

Determining The Modified Derivative In Pressure Analysis, Scott Michael Frailey

Masters Theses

"The derivative type of curve technique of Bourdet for analyzing pressure tests requires calculating the derivative of the storage plot. Four numerical methods are used to evaluate the derivative: a five-point formula, Richardson's Extrapolation, a parabolic fit, and a central difference procedure. The parabolic fit and the central difference technique are good methods of determining the derivative. The effects of logarithmic s pacing of the data, using a central difference method, are studied. An investigation of the second derivative and the integral is conducted"-- Abstract, p. ii

A New Automated Pulse Testing Analysis Method Applying Inflection Point Theory, Jose Maria Donoso

Masters Theses

"This paper describes a new technique for pulse test analysis that combines the simplicity of the tangent method with the result repeatability of the iterative methods. Inflection points are used instead of time lag with the added advantage that they are calculated by a simple algorithm and are not subject to graphical misinterpretation. Charts are made for the calculation of transmissibility and storage for unequal pulse and shut-in periods from 0.1 to 0.9 relating inflection time to pulse response amplitude and dimensionless inflection time.

The graphs presented for this technique have the same dimensionless cycle period ranges (from 0.44 to …

Swelling Pressure Studies Of Shales, S. L. Huang, N. B. Aughenbaugh, John D. Rockaway

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A swelling model was developed to predict the swelling pressure which occurs within shale or shale material when it is immersed in water. This model is also capable of estimating the magnitude of shale swelling when subject to humidity changes. The model was developed on a basis of the moisture susceptibility of the shale and the initial humidity of the ventilated mine air. The Moisture Activity Index (IRH) was selected to describe the susceptibility of shale to moisture because of its close association with the other physical properties, its strong correlation with the swelling of the shale, and because it …

On The Mean Time Between Failures For Repairable Systems, Max Engelhardt, Lee J. Bain

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Much of the recent work on modeling repairable systems involves Poisson processes with nonconstant intensity functions, viz, nonhomogeneous Poisson processes. Since times between failures are not identically distributed when the process is nonhomogeneous, it is not clear what concept should take the place of the mean time between failures in assessing the reliability of a repairable system. A number of alternate concepts can be found in the literature. We investigate the relationship between two of the most frequently considered alternatives: the reciprocal of the intensity function, and the mean waiting time from t until the next failure. Theorem 1 states …

Automated Evaluation Of Reservoir Parameters Applying Pressure Transient Theory, Steven Robert Homoky

Masters Theses

"This study presents an investigation to automatically evaluate reservoir parameters using pressure transient theory. Methods will be introduced to numerically fit the well test data in the real (time) domain (specifically the pressure change as a function of test time). The numerical fit and known fluid, rock and well properties will be used to evaluate the dimensionless storage coefficient. The theoretical dimensionless pressure (being a function of skin factor, permeability, and dimensionless storage coefficient) is obtained by Laplace Inversion. The ability to evaluate the dimensionless storage coefficient thus reduces the parameters of the pressure equation by one. Varying the skin …