Browsing by Subject "clays"
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Item An Improved Model for Sandstone Acidizing and Study of the Effect of Mineralogy and Temperature on Sandstone Acidizing Treatments and Simulation(2013-01-14) Agarwal, Amit KumarSandstone acidizing is a complex operation because the acidizing fluid reacts with a variety of minerals present in the formation that results in a wide range of reaction products. The hydrofluoric acid (HF) reaction rate differs widely from mineral to mineral because of the variation in the reaction rate and the area of contact with the injected fluid. The series of reactions occurring in sandstone makes it all the more difficult to find the exact individual reaction rate constants. An improved model that provides better estimates of the outcome of a sandstone acidizing treatment is developed following a review of previous sandstone acidizing models. The model follows the lumped mineral methodology and is based mainly on the kinetic approach. The use of accurate reaction-rate laws allows the model to effectively predict the consumption of acidizing fluid during the stimulation treatment. The consideration of a proper equation for the silica gel filming factor accounts for the fact that some clay becomes inaccessible to the acid when silica gel precipitates on their surface. The proposed model is shown here to be valid in extrapolating laboratory coreflood data and predicting the effluent acid concentration at various flow rates. The damage during sandstone acidizing can be minimized when stimulation treatments are designed according to the percentage of carbonate in the formation, type and amount of clay in the formation and the reservoir bottomhole temperature. Most of the available software for design and evaluation of acidizing treatments do not consider the temperature and mineralogy effects extensively. We studied one such software and developed recommendations to improve the design and evaluation of sandstone acidizing treatments by taking into account the multifaceted effects of temperature and mineralogy in increasingly deep and hot sandstone environments. These recommendations will be of great use in the times to come as most of the wells will have to be drilled at greater depths in search for new reserves.Item Layer-by-layer Assembly of Nanobrick Wall Ultrathin Transparent Gas Barrier Films(2012-07-16) Priolo, Morgan AlexanderThin layers with high barrier to oxygen and other gases are a key component to many packaging applications, such as flexible electronics, food, and pharmaceuticals. Vapor deposited thin films provide significant gas barrier, but are prone to cracking when flexed, require special, non-ambient processing environments, and can involve complex fabrication when layered with polymers. The addition of clay into polymers can enhance barrier properties relative to the neat polymer; however, these composites are subject to clay aggregation at high loadings, which leads to increased opacity and random platelet alignment that ultimately reduce barrier improvement. Layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly is capable of producing thin films that exhibit super gas barrier properties, while remaining flexible and completely transparent. Montmorillonite (MMT) clay and branched polyethylenimine (PEI) were deposited via LbL assembly to create gas barrier films that can be tailored by altering the pH of the PEI deposition solution or the concentration of the MMT suspension. Films grow linearly as a function of layers deposited, where increasing PEI pH increases spacing between clay layers and increasing MMT concentration increases thin film clay content. An oxygen transmission rate (OTR) below the detection limit of commercial instrumentation (< 0.005 cm3/m2?day?atm) is observed after 70 layers of 0.2 wt % MMT or 24 layers of 2 wt % MMT are deposited with pH 10 PEI onto 179 ?m thick poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) film. Three-component films of PEI, poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), and MMT grow exponentially as a function of PEI/PAA/PEI/MMT quadlayers deposited. A transparent, ultrathin film of only four quadlayers deposited onto PET exhibits the lowest oxygen permeability ever reported for any thin film material, at only 51 nm thick. Finally, the first example of LbL assembly using large aspect ratio vermiculite (VMT) clay was performed. PEI/VMT films grow linearly as a function of layers deposited and exhibit 95 % light transmission with 97 wt % VMT. The barrier of these films is due to the highly aligned nanobrick wall structure that creates a tortuous path for permeating molecules. Coupling high flexibility, transparency, and barrier, these coatings are good candidates for a variety of packaging applications.Item Numerical Methods in Offshore Geotechnics: Applications to Submarine Landslides and Anchor Plates(2013-05-08) Nouri, Hamid RezaThe emphasis of this dissertation is on using numerical and plasticity based methods to study two main areas of offshore geotechnics. The first part of this dissertation focuses on the undrained behavior of deeply embedded anchor plates under combined shear and torsion. Plate anchors are increasingly being used instead of typical foundation systems to anchor offshore floating platforms to sustain uplift operating forces. However extreme loading cases would create general loading conditions involving six degrees of freedom. The focus of my research was to evaluate the bearing capacity of plate anchors under two-way horizontal and torsional loading and to study the decreasing effect of torsional moment on the horizontal bearing capacity of these foundations. The study takes advantage of several approaches: Numerical simulation (two and three dimensional finite element analysis) Evaluating and modification of the available plasticity solutions Developing equations for three degree-of-freedom yield locus surfaces The same methodology is applied to evaluate the response of shallow foundations for subsea infrastructure subjected to significant eccentric horizontal loads. The second part of this study focuses on offshore geohazards. Coastal communities and the offshore industry can be impacted directly by geohazards, such as submarine slope failures, or by tsunamis generated by the failed mass movements. This study aims at evaluating the triggering mechanisms of submarine landslide under cyclic wave and earthquake loading. A simple effective stress elasto-plastic model with a minimal number of parameters accounting for monotonic and cyclic response of fine-grained material is developed. The new constitutive soil model could be used to simulate case histories and conduct parametric study to evaluate the effect of slope inclination angle, the earthquake loading with different PGA, frequency content, and duration, as well as various deposition rates to simulate different over pressure levels. This study will generate more insight on the static and cyclic behavior of submarine slopes and influencing factors on their triggering mechanisms using more comprehensive and realistic modeling tools. Several objectives are defined: Developing an appropriate constitutive formulation, Evaluating the constitutive model and material parameters for available databases.Item Sandstone Acidizing Using Chelating Agents and their Interaction with Clays(2013-01-09) George, Noble Thekkemelathethil 1987-Sandstone acidizing has been carried out with mud acid which combines hydrochloric acid and hydrofluoric acid at various ratios. The application of mud acid in sandstone formations has presented quite a large number of difficulties like corrosion, precipitation of reaction products, matrix deconsolidation, decomposition of clays by HCl, and fast spending of the acids. There has been a recent trend to use chelating agents for stimulation in place of mud acid which are used in oil industry widely for iron control operations. In this study, two chelates, L-glutamic-N, N-diacetic acid (GLDA) and hydroxyethylethylene-diaminetriacetic acid (HEDTA) have been studied as an alternative to mud acid for acidizing. In order to analyze their performance in the application of acidizing, coreflood tests were performed on Berea and Bandera sandstone cores. Another disadvantage of mud acid has been the fast spending at clay mineral surfaces leading to depletion of acid strength, migration of fines, and formation of colloidal silica gel residue. Hence, compatibility of chelates with clay minerals was investigated through the static solubility tests. GLDA and HEDTA were analyzed for their permeability enhancement properties in Berea and Bandera cores. In the coreflood experiments conducted, it was found out that chelating agents can successfully stimulate sandstone formations. The final permeability of the Berea and Bandera cores were enhanced significantly. GLDA performed better than HEDTA in all applications. The substitution of seawater in place of deionized water for mixing purposes also led to an increased conductivity of the core implying GLDA is compatible with seawater. In the static solubility tests, chelates were mixed with HF acid at various concentrations. GLDA fluids kept more amounts of minerals in the solution when compared with HEDTA fluids. Sodium-based chelates when mixed with HF acid showed inhibited performance due to the formation of sodium fluorosilicates precipitates which are insoluble damage creating compounds. The application of ammonium-based chelate with HF acid was able to bring a large amount of aluminosilciates into the solution. The study recommends the use of ammonium-based GLDA in acidizing operations involving HF acid and sodium-based GLDA in the absence of the acid.