Sharif Digital Repository

Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer flooding is one of the most novel chemical enhanced oil recovery methods in the petroleum industry. This method has attracted interest due to its remarkable advantages. In this work, a series of ASP floods are conducted on fractured/non-fractured carbonate rocks. The performance of the tests was investigated by various ASP floods consisting of five types of polymers, two surfactants and one common alkaline. ASP was flooded simultaneously and sequentially in four defined scenarios after water flooding. The results showed that although using hydrolysed polymers increases the recovery factor in the fractured medium, sulfonated polymers increase oil recovery even more... 

The connectivity of high conductivity pathways in geological formations depend on the spatial distribution of geological heterogeneities that may appear on various length scales. Appropriate modeling of this is crucial within in hydrology and petroleum systems. The approach taken in this study is to use percolation theory to quantify the connectivity, hydraulic conductivity, and breakthrough time behavior between an injector and a producer within such systems. In particular, a three-dimensional overlapping sandbody model is considered which assumes that the geological formation can be split into either conductive flow units (i. e., good sands) or non-conductive units (i. e., poor sands). The... 

Numerical simulation of the electrical field distribution helps in-depth understanding of the mechanisms behind the responses and the benefits of the high voltage pulse comminution. The COMSOL Multiphysics package was used to numerically simulate the effect of ore compositions in this study. Regarding phosphate ore particles shape and composition, the effects of mineral composition, particle size, particle shape and electrodes distance were investigated on the electrical field intensity and distribution. The results show that the induced electrical field is significantly dependent on the electrical properties of minerals, the feed particle size and the location of conductive minerals in... 

Utilizing improved production methods have been always challenging in upstream industries. Nowadays, hydraulic fracturing is one of the most prestigious mechanical methods. Application of this method is in wells with low productivity index. Hydraulic fracturing efficiency depends on various factors, such as fracture geometry, fluid composition, and stress distribution. But some of them would be ignored, such as fracture geometry, which is neglected due to nongravity and lack of investigation of DFN statistical population assumption. The authors develop a more comprehensive methodology based on fracture geometry and aim to model one of the gas reservoirs in Iran that is naturally fractured by... 

A multi-echelon supply chain design problem concerns the structure of the network and allocation of resources of the company to meet the demand forecast. This paper tries to design a multi-echelon supply chain network with five echelons including supplier, cross-dock, plant, distribution center and representative (customer). For this purpose, a mixed-integer mathematical model is developed to investigate the location of cross-docks, distribution centers, and also allocation between each pair of parties in order to minimize total cost of location and transportation. Due to the complexity of the model, a novel genetic algorithm is developed and applied on a real-world case study of Iran Khodro... 

The density jump on an inclined surface is analyzed using an integral method by applying mass and momentum conservation equations. The jump occurs in a two-layered fluid flow in which the upper layer is stagnant and very deep. A relation is derived, which gives the conjugate depth ratio as a function of inlet densimetric Froude number, inlet concentration ratio, bed slope and entrainment. A set of experiments are performed to verify the relation. The theory and the measurements are in good agreement. The analysis reveals that increasing the surface inclination results in a decrease in the conjugate depth ratio. This analysis also shows that the densimetric Froude number just after the jump... 

This paper presents the results of an analytical study on the dynamic characteristics of the Shaking Table facilities at Sharif University. This 3 degree of freedom shaking table is driven by 3 servo-control hydraulic actuators, and consists of a 12 ton, 4m×4m×0.6m steel deck. The main objective of this investigation is to identify the degree of flexibility of the deck, and its adverse effects in causing errors in the simulation of seismic effects on different structural specimens. Many frame specimens of different weights and configurations are subjected to seismic motions, and their responses are calculated using FE models. Some of these models were designed to account for eccentric... 

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to apply a hybrid neuro-fuzzy paradigm called self-organizing neuro-fuzzy multilayered classifier (SONeFMUC) to classify the operating faults of a hydraulic system. The main motivation behind the use of SONeFMUC is to attest the capabilities of neuro-fuzzy classifier for handling the difficulties associated with fault diagnosis of hydraulic circuits. Design/methodology/approach: In the proposed methodology, first, the neuro-fuzzy nodes at each layer of the SONeFMUC are trained separately using two well-known bio-inspired algorithms, i.e. a semi deterministic method with random walks called co-variance matrix adaptation evolutionary strategy (CMA-ES) and... 

The details of the Element Free Galerkin (EFG) method are presented with the method being applied to a study on hydraulic fracturing initiation and propagation process in a saturated porous medium using coupled hydro-mechanical numerical modelling. In this EFG method, interpolation (approximation) is based on nodes without using elements and hence an arbitrary discrete fracture path can be modelled.The numerical approach is based upon solving two governing partial differential equations of equilibrium and continuity of pore water simultaneously. Displacement increment and pore water pressure increment are discretized using the same EFG shape functions. An incremental constrained Galerkin... 

Porosity and specific surface are two prominent factors in describing the hydraulic properties of porous media. Determination of these two important parameters leads to identify the capability of porous media to conduct the fluids. In the present study, a new relationship between porosity and specific surface of sandstones has been developed. Micro-CT data from 10 types of sandstones has been utilized in order to present a porosity-specific surface correlation. This correlation also contains the average grain radius of each rock obtained by image processing algorithms. Finally, the correlation is tested on the provided data to evaluate its precision. The simplicity and applicability of the... 

In this paper, the crack growth simulation is presented in saturated porous media using the extended finite element method. The mass balance equation of fluid phase and the momentum balance of bulk and fluid phases are employed to obtain the fully coupled set of equations in the framework of u - p formulation. The fluid flow within the fracture is modeled using the Darcy law, in which the fracture permeability is assumed according to the well-known cubic law. The spatial discritization is performed using the extended finite element method, the time domain discritization is performed based on the generalized Newmark scheme, and the non-linear system of equations is solved using the... 

The fresh groundwater lenses (FGLs) of small islands can be highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, including sea-level rise (SLR). Many real cases of atoll or sandy islands involve two-layer hydrogeological conceptualizations. In this paper, the influential factors that affect FGLs in two-layer small islands subject to SLR are investigated. An analytical solution describing FGLs in circular islands, composed of two geological layers, is developed for the simplified case of steady-state and sharp-interface conditions. An application of the developed model is demonstrated to estimate the FGL thickness of some real-world islands by comparison with existing FGL thickness data. Furthermore,... 

Due to the water scarcity and uneven distribution of water resources, conveyance systems are designed to carry water through basins. For this purpose conveyance tunnels which carry supper/subcritical flows are commonly constructed. The occurrence of steps in the tunnels created by segment off-sets during the TBM operations would cause significant local head losses. As a result, the flow discharge may reduce. In this study subcritical free surface flow in conveyance tunnel is simulated using the one-dimensional HEC-RAS model. Impact of the invert segment off-set on the discharge rate is then estimated. Similarly a two-dimensional numerical model based on the Volume of Fluid (VOF) scheme is... 

Monte Carlo simulation provides a probabilistic approach to evaluate the physical behavior of infrastructures. Therefore, the performance could be achieved in a more realistic manner. Within this framework, an innovative software code is developed by combining the Monte Carlo and finite difference methods to predict the behavior of embankment dams after impounding. In order to assess the efficiency of the method, the case study of Chahnimeh-4 dam, located at Southeast of Iran, has been investigated in detail. The behavior of this dam is predicted and compared with the field monitoring by using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The results indicate the robustness of the proposed method and it can... 

A modelling of the anaerobic digestion process of molasses was conducted in a 70-L multistage anaerobic biofilm reactor or hybrid anaerobic baffled reactor with six compartments at an operating temperature of 26 °C. Five hydraulic retention times (6, 16, 24, 72 and 120 h) were studied at a constant influent COD concentration of 10,000 mg/L. Two different kinetic models (one was based on a dispersion model with first-order kinetics for substrate consumption and the other based on a modification of the Young equation) were evaluated and compared to predict the organic matter removal efficiency or fractional conversion. The first-order kinetic constant obtained with the dispersion model was... 

Modeling the water flow in cohesive fracture is a fundamental issue in the crack growth simulation of cracked concrete gravity dams and hydraulic fracture problems. In this paper, a mathematical model is presented for the analysis of fracture propagation in the semi-saturated porous media. The solid behavior incorporates a discrete cohesive fracture model, coupled with the flow in porous media through the fracture network. The double-nodded zero-thickness cohesive interface element is employed for the mixed mode fracture behavior in tension and contact behavior in compression. The modified crack permeability is applied in fracture propagation based on the data obtained from experimental... 

The objective of this study is the investigation of formaldehyde degradation in a bioreactor with pumice stone as a support. The reactor was tested at different synthetic wastewater concentrations with total COD of 500, 1000 and 1500 mgL, respectively, at 24 h hydraulic retention time. The effect of feed composition was tested by changing the COD TCOD FA ratio in order to analyze the impact of formaldehyde concentration. The average formaldehyde and COD removal efficiencies obtained in the reactor were 97.1% and 88%, respectively. The maximum COD and formaldehyde removal efficiencies occurred at the COD TCOD F of 41 at COD T=1000mgL. The effect of toxic shock on reactor performance was... 

In the present research, the effect of residual stress distribution on the static strain aging (SSA) phenomenon in cold rolled steel was investigated. A three-dimensional model was employed to evaluate the residual stress distributions within the rolled strips, and hole drilling experiments were also performed to verify the data obtained from the mathematical model. Hardness and tensile tests were then performed on the cold rolled samples at different temperatures and aging periods, and the results of these tests were utilised to assess SSA behaviour after different rolling programs. The results show that SSA occurs within the cold rolled steel in the employed aging period, and its kinetics... 

In the present study, methods for improving the hydraulic performance of labyrinth side weirs in a rectangular channel are reported based on model experimentation. For this purpose different arrangements and configurations of groups of guide vane plates and piles in the side weir flow field were tested. Experiments were conducted on labyrinth side weirs of different lengths and sill heights fitted in the test section of a rectangular glass-walled channel. Depths of flow were measured in both longitudinal and crosswise directions at regular intervals and their profiles were studied. It was found that the discharge coefficient of the labyrinth side weirs under these conditions gave... 

In this study, static strain aging behaviour of cold rolled steel strips was considered with emphasis on the distribution of residual hydrostatic stress developed during temper rolling. In order to assess residual stress distribution produced by the temper rolling, a three-dimensional model was first employed. Then, samples were rolled at a reduction of 4% under single and double pass rolling programmes and the kinetics of static strain aging phenomenon as well as the required activation energies were then evaluated using hardness and tensile tests on the deformed samples. Considering the predicted residual hydrostatic stress distribution, it was found that tensile hydrostatic stresses...