Field Realization of Adaptive Reservoir Simulation for Steam Injection Forecasting

Globally, steam injection for heavy and high-viscous oil recovery is increasing, including carbonate reservoirs. Lack of full understanding such reservoir heating and limited information about production and injection rates of individual wells require to forecast steam injection not only deterministic and simple liquid displacement characteristic modeling types, but also the data-driven one, which covers the adaptive modeling. The implementation and validation of the adaptive system is presented in this paper by one of the world's largest carbonate reservoirs with heavy and high-viscous oil of the Usinsk field. Steam injection forecasting in such reservoirs is complicated by the unstable well interactions and relatively low additional oil production. In the adaptive geological model, vertical dimensions of cells are similar to gross thicknesses of stratigraphic layers. Geological parameters of cells with drilled wells do not necessarily match actual parameters of those wells since the cells include information of neighboring wells. During the adaptive hydrodynamic modeling, a reservoir pressure is reproduced by cumulative production and injection allocation among the 3D grid cells. Steam injection forecasting is firstly based on the liquid displacement characteristics, which are later modified considering well interactions. To estimate actual oil production of steamflooding using the reservoir adaptive geological and hydrodynamic models, dimensionless interaction coefficients of injection and production wells were first calculated. Then, fuzzy logic functions were created to evaluate the base oil production of reacting wells. For most of those wells, actual oil production was 25 – 30 % higher than the base case. Oil production of steamflooding for the next three-year period was carried out by modeling two options of the reservoir further development - with and without steam injection. Generally, forecasted oil production of the option with steam injection was about 5 % higher. The forecasting effectiveness of cyclic steam stimulations of production wells was done using the cross-section method, when the test sample was divided into two groups - the best and the worst, for which the average forecasted oil rates after the stimulations were respectively higher or lower than the average actual oil rate after the stimulations for the entire sample. The difference between the average actual oil rates after the stimulations of the best and the worst groups was 32 %, i.e. this is in how much the actual oil production could have increased if only the best group of the sample had been treated.

Novel Biodegradable Polyurethanes Reinforced With Green Nanofibers for Applications in Tissue Engineering

New class of green biocomposites were designed and synthesized for tissue engineering applications. These newly introduced non-cytotoxic, biodegradable polyurethane composites had different compositions (i.e., ratio of hard to soft segments) of the linear, aliphatic hexamethylene diisocyanate and polycaprolactone diol. The porosity was introduced in the polyurethane matrix using a combination of salt leaching and thermally induced phase separation (TIPS). The resulting interconnected pore size was characterized using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to be between 125-355 μm. Porosity was determined using liquid displacement and found to be between 70-75% for non-reinforced matrices, 64-70% for reinforcement with 5 wt% biocellulose nanofiber (BCNF), 59-69% for 10 wt% BCNF, and 57-69% for 15 wt% BCNF biocomposite samples. Dependent on the composition, compressive strength showed up to a little less than two-fold increase (85%) for green BCNF reinforcement of 5 wt% and more than two-fold increase (120%) for 10 wt%. The tensile strength also increased up to almost two-fold (114%) for reinforcement with 5 wt% BCNF and to more than two-fold (140%) for 10 wt% reinforcement. Higher degrees of reinforcement showed a detrimental effect on both properties. Properties demonstrate that this novel class of nanostructured biocomposite holds potential to be utilized as scaffolds for tissue regeneration.

Novel Biodegradable Polyurethanes Reinforced With Green Nanofibers for Applications in Tissue Engineering

New class of green biocomposites were designed and synthesized for tissue engineering applications. These newly introduced non-cytotoxic, biodegradable polyurethane composites had different compositions (i.e., ratio of hard to soft segments) of the linear, aliphatic hexamethylene diisocyanate and polycaprolactone diol. The porosity was introduced in the polyurethane matrix using a combination of salt leaching and thermally induced phase separation (TIPS). The resulting interconnected pore size was characterized using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to be between 125-355 μm. Porosity was determined using liquid displacement and found to be between 70-75% for non-reinforced matrices, 64-70% for reinforcement with 5 wt% biocellulose nanofiber (BCNF), 59-69% for 10 wt% BCNF, and 57-69% for 15 wt% BCNF biocomposite samples. Dependent on the composition, compressive strength showed up to a little less than two-fold increase (85%) for green BCNF reinforcement of 5 wt% and more than two-fold increase (120%) for 10 wt%. The tensile strength also increased up to almost two-fold (114%) for reinforcement with 5 wt% BCNF and to more than two-fold (140%) for 10 wt% reinforcement. Higher degrees of reinforcement showed a detrimental effect on both properties. Properties demonstrate that this novel class of nanostructured biocomposite holds potential to be utilized as scaffolds for tissue regeneration.

Indirect evaluation of the porosity of waste wood briquettes by measuring the surface roughness

The briquette porosity is a quality characteristic known to be important for combustion analysis, heat and mass transfer processes during combustion stages, determination of effective thermal conductivity or other related properties. This paper describes a method to quantify the briquette porosity by some surface roughness parameters that can be useful for alternative, inexpensive and at hand evaluations. Porosity of briquettes manufactured with a hydraulic press from waste wood from secondary processing was calculated with three methods suggested in the literature for wood; of these, one was adapted here for a wet porosity model (called “general relation”) proposed for wood briquettes. Briquettes density was obtained by using two stereometric methods and a liquid displacement method. Correlations were examined between porosity, surface roughness parameters and density of briquettes. Very strong correlations with surface roughness were identified for porosity calculated with all three methods, when density was measured by one of the stereometric methods. These correlations can serve as a method to indirect evaluation of the briquettes porosity by measuring the surface roughness.

Some Bio-Technical Properties of Flax Seeds, Fennel Seeds and Harmal Seed Capsules

Some bio-technical properties of flax seeds, fennel seeds, and harmal seed capsules were determined. The size dimensions (length, width, and thickness) of flax seeds and fennel seeds were as 4.31 mm, 2.28 mm, 0.87 mm; 6.93 mm, 2.13 mm, 1.75 mm, respectively. The diameter and length for harmal seed capsules were 9.07 mm and 6.65 mm, respectively. The true density (ρt) was determined using the liquid displacement method, and the bulk density (ρb) was determined using the hectolitre tester. The bulk density for flax seeds, fennel seeds, and harmal seed capsules were determined as 384.3 kg m-3, 270.5 kg m-3 and 201.5 kg m-3, while, true density was found as 1256.5 kg m-3, 664.6 kg m-3, 936.2 kg m-3 for flax seeds, fennel seeds, and harmal seed capsules, respectively. The sphericity of for flax seeds, fennel seeds and harmal seed capsules were obtained as 0.47, 0.43, 0.72, respectively. The angle of repose was obtained as 13.84º, 17.35º, 29.94º for flax seeds, fennel seeds, and harmal seed capsules, respectively. The rubber friction surface has given the highest static friction coefficient for flax seeds, fennel seeds, and harmal seed capsules.

Non-Destructive Characterization of Industrial Membrane Cartridges by Using Liquid–Liquid Displacement Porosimetry (LLDP)

This works aims to propose and demonstrate the accuracy of a novel method of characterization aimed for non-destructive analysis of microfiltration (MF) membrane cartridges. The method adapts conventional liquid–liquid displacement porosimetry (LLDP) for performing an in-line porosimetric analysis of the membrane cartridges, getting their pore size distributions (PSDs) and mean pore diameters (davg). Six commercial filtration cartridges featuring polyethersulfone (PES) pleated membranes were analyzed using a newly designed filtration rig, based on the liquid–liquid displacement porometer, developed at the Institut de la Filtration et des Techniques Séparatives (IFTS) and operated at constant flow. The experimental rig allows the direct and non-destructive characterization of the cartridge in its original presentation. Results have been compared with those obtained by using gas–liquid displacement porosimetry (GLDP) on small membrane coupons detached from such cartridges. The comparison allows us to conclude that the proposed method gives enough accuracy in the determination of porosimetric characteristics of the filters. This method can be used as a precise characterization technique for a non-destructive in-line study of filter performance and can be envisaged as useful to periodic quality or fouling control of the commercial cartridges.