In situ chemical oxidation using permanganate is an increasingly employed approach to organic contaminant remediation at hazardous waste sites. Manganese dioxide (MnO2) particles form as a by-product of the reaction of permanganate with contaminants and naturally-reduced subsurface materials. These particles are of interest because they have the potential to deposit in the subsurface and impact the flow regime in/around permanganate injection, including the well screen, filter pack, and the surrounding subsurface formation. Control of these particles can allow for improved oxidant injection and transport, and contact between the oxidant and contaminants of concern. Sodium hexametaphosphate (HMP) has previously been identified as a promising aid to stabilize MnO2 in solution when included in the oxidizing solution, increasing the potential to inhibit particle deposition and impact subsurface flow. The goal of the experimental studies described herein was to investigate the ability of HMP to prevent particle deposition in transport studies using four different types of porous media. Permanganate was delivered to a contaminant source zone (trichloroethylene) located within four different media types with variations in sand, clay, organic carbon, and iron oxides (as goethite) content. Deposition of MnO2 within the columns was quantified with distance from the source zone. Experiments were repeated in replicate columns with the inclusion of HMP directly with the oxidant delivery solution, and MnO2 deposition was again quantified. While total MnO2 deposition within the 60 cm columns did not change significantly with the addition of HMP, deposition within the contaminant source zone decreased by 25-85%, depending on the specific media type. The greatest differences in deposition were observed in the goethite-containing and clay-containing columns. Columns containing these two media types experienced completely plugged flow in the oxidant-only delivery systems; however, the addition of HMP prevented this plugging within the columns, increasing the oxidant throughput.

Aerosolized drug delivery to the human lungs for asthma treatment has long been studied and yet the relationship between the delivery efficacy and the inter-subject variability due to gender, age, and disease severity remains unclear. A recent imaging-based cluster analysis on a population of asthmatic patients identifies four clusters with distinct structural and functional characteristics. The use of cluster membership to explore inter-subject variability by investigating numerically the air flow and particle transport in representative subjects of the asthmatic clusters on inhalation drug delivery in asthma sub-populations is proposed. Large-eddy simulations using computed tomography (CT)-based airway models were performed with a slow and deep breathing profile corresponding to application of a metered dose inhaler. Physiologically consistent subject specific boundary conditions in peripheral airways were produced using an image registration technique and a resistance network compliance model. Particle simulations and final deposition statistics were calculated for particle sizes ranging from 1–8 μm. The results suggested an emphasis on the importance of airway constriction for regional particle deposition and prominent effects of local features in lobar, segmental, and sub-segmental airways on overall deposition patterns. Asthmatic clusters characterized by airway constriction had an increase in deposition efficiency in lobar, segmental, and sub-segmental airways. Local constrictions produced jet flows that impinged on distal bifurcations and resulted in large inertial depositions. Decreased right main bronchus (RMB) branching angle decreased the fraction of particles ventilated to the right upper lobe (RUL). Cluster-based computational fluid dynamics results demonstrate particle deposition characteristics associated with imaging based variables that could be useful for future drug delivery improvements. One method for circumventing low deposition in small airways due to constriction in tracheobronchial airways is through hygroscopic growth of aerosols for inhalation. Hygroscopic materials have an affinity for water and can enlarge in size significantly as they traverse through respiratory tract. Hygroscopic growth has shown promise as a viable drug delivery method for decreasing deposition in the upper tracheobronchial region and increasing drug penetration and retention in small airways. Current models for hygroscopic growth models show promise in predicting steady state final diameter aerosol droplet sizes, but much uncertainty in predicting transient effects exists. This paper discusses in detail one such growth model and modifies it to include realistic spatial temperature and humidity variations associated with the lung. The growth model is simplified through grouping of terms and is then solved using MATLAB ODE 45 solver. The model is compared to experimentally acquired in vitro data for validation. The results do not show good agreement with the model, and suggests that additional factors exist that inhibit aerosol droplet growth from commencing immediately upon entering the respiratory tract like is assumed true in literature. This paper briefly hypothesizes for reasons for model and data disagreement and limitations of current growth models.

The naturally occurring isotopes 231Pa and 230Th are used as tracers of marine biogeochemical processes. They are both produced from the radioactive decay of their uniformly distributed uranium parents (235U and 234U) in seawater. After production, 231Pa and 230Th are removed by adsorption onto settling particles (scavenging) and subsequently buried in marine sediments. 230Th is more particle reactive compared to 231Pa. Consequently, 230Th will be removed from the open ocean by adsorption onto settling particles, while 231Pa tend to be laterally transported by currents and removed by scavenging in areas of high particle flux (e.g. ocean margins). The primordial 232Th indicates lithogenic supply via rivers and resuspension of sediments, which provides additional information about processes involved in the cycling of particle reactive elements in the ocean. The preferential deposition of particle reactive elements at ocean margins (boundary scavenging) has important implications for our understanding of the distribution and dispersion of micronutrients (e.g. iron) and pollutants in the ocean. It is therefore valuable to understand the nature of boundary scavenging processes in order to evaluate the relative contribution of circulation and scavenging behaviors.The major characteristics of thermohaline circulation in the Mediterranean are well known and have been studied for decades. This sea is an almost land-locked area, where limited water-exchange with the Atlantic Ocean only occurs through the Strait of Gibraltar. Therefore, this marginal sea is often referred to as a “miniature ocean” suitable as a “laboratory” for marine environmental research. In this licentiate thesis, distributions of 231Pa, 230Th and 232Th in seawater and marine particles collected during the GEOTRACES MedSeA-GA04-S cruise in 2013 are presented. Observed nuclide distributions indicate the impact of deep water formation processes, where observed differences can be linked to the type of deep water formation process that occurs in respective basin. Essentially all in-situ produced 230Th is buried in Mediterranean Sea sediments. Despite lower affinity of 231Pa for marine particles, most 231Pa is also scavenged and deposited in Mediterranean Sea sediments. The efficient scavenging of 231Pa produces a relatively low fractionation between 231Pa and 230Th in terms of the fractionation factor FTh/Pa. This licentiate thesis presents a summary of the methods used for the analysis of 231Pa and Th-isotopes with details on the exchange chromatography method and the treatment of mass spectrometric data. The study of 231Pa, 230Th and 232Th in the Mediterranean Sea has important implications for our understanding of processes that control their water column distributions and how their behavior can be utilized to trace chemical flux in modern and past ocean environments. / GEOTRACES / MeDSeA

A colloidal system usually refers to when very small particles are suspended within a solution. The study of these systems encompasses a variety of cases including bacteria in ground water, blood cells and platelets in blood plasma, and river silt transport. Taking a look at these kinds of systems using computer simulation can provide a great deal of insight into how they work. Most approaches to date do not look at the details of the system, however, and are specific to given system. In this study a program called OpenFOAM is used as a basis to build a computer simulation tool that is flexible and that provides a detailed look at what is happening with all of the particles within the colloidal solution. This code is run through a series of tests to verify its usefulness.

No description available.

Turbulent magnetic fields are ubiquitous in space physics and astrophysics. The influence of magnetic turbulence on the motions of charged particles contains the essential physics of the transport and acceleration of energetic charged particles in the heliosphere, which is to be explored in this thesis. After a brief introduction on the energetic charged particles and magnetic fields in the heliosphere, the rest of this dissertation focuses on three specific topics: 1. the transport of energetic charged particles in the inner heliosphere, 2. the acceleration of ions at collisionless shocks, and 3. the acceleration of electrons at collisionless shocks. We utilize various numerical techniques to study these topics. In Chapter 2 we study the propagation of charged particles in turbulent magnetic fields similar to the propagation of solar energetic particles in the inner heliosphere. The trajectories of energetic charged particles in the turbulent magnetic field are numerically integrated. The turbulence model includes a Kolmogorov-like magnetic field power spectrum containing a broad range of scales from those that lead to large-scale field-line random walk to small scales leading to resonant pitch-angle scattering of energetic particles. We show that small-scale variations in particle intensities (the so-called "dropouts") and velocity dispersions observed by spacecraft can be reproduced using this method. Our study gives a new constraint on the error of "onset analysis", which is a technique commonly used to infer information about the initial release of energetic particles. We also find that the dropouts are rarely produced in the simulations using the so-called "two-component" magnetic turbulence model (Matthaeus et al., 1990). The result questions the validity of this model in studying particle transport. In the first part of Chapter 3 we study the acceleration of ions in the existence of turbulent magnetic fields. We use 3-D self-consistent hybrid simulations (kinetic ions and fluid electrons) to investigate the acceleration of low-energy particles (often termed as "injection problem") at parallel shocks. We find that the accelerated particles always gain the first amount of energy by reflection and acceleration at the shock layer. The protons can move off their original field lines in the 3-D electric and magnetic fields. The results are consistent with the acceleration mechanism found in previous 1-D and 2-D simulations. In the second part of Chapter 3, we use a stochastic integration method to study diffusive shock acceleration in the existence of large-scale magnetic variations. We show that the 1-D steady state solution of diffusive shock acceleration can be significantly modified in this situation. The results suggest that the observations of anomalous cosmic rays by Voyager spacecraft can be explained by a 2-D shock that includes the large-scale magnetic field variations. In Chapter 4 we study electron acceleration at a shock passing into a turbulent magnetic field by using a combination of hybrid simulations and test-particle electron simulations. We find that the acceleration of electrons is greatly enhanced by including the effect of large-scale magnetic turbulence. Since the electrons mainly follow along the magnetic lines of force, the large-scale braiding of field lines in space allows the fast-moving electrons interacting with the shock front multiple times. Ripples in the shock front occurring at various scales also contribute to the acceleration by mirroring the electrons. Our calculation shows that this process favors electron acceleration at perpendicular shocks. We discuss the application of this process in interplanetary shocks and flare termination shocks. We also discuss the implication of this study to solar energetic particles (SEPs) by comparing the acceleration of electrons with that of protons. The intensity correlation of electrons and ions in SEP events indicates that perpendicular or quasi-perpendicular shocks play an important role in accelerating charged particles. In Chapter 5 we summarize the results of this thesis and discuss possible future work.

No description available.

Transportation of unprocessed multiphase reservoir fluids from deep/ultra deep offshore through a long subsea tieback/pipeline is inevitable. This form of transportation is complex and requires accurate knowledge of critical transport velocity, flow pattern changes, phase velocity, pressure drop, particle drag & lift forces, sand/liquid/gas holdup, flow rate requirement and tieback sizing etc at the early design phase and during operation for process optimisation. This research investigated sand transport characteristics in multiphase, water‐oil‐gas‐sand flows in horizontal, inclined and vertical pipes. Two critical factors that influence the solid particle transport in the case of multiphase flow in pipes were identified; these are the transient phenomena of flow patterns and the characteristic drag & lift coefficients ( D C , L C ). Therefore, the equations for velocity profile were developed for key flow patterns such as dispersed bubble flow, stratified flow, slug flow and annular flow using a combination of analytical equations and numerical simulation tool (CFD). The existing correlations for D C & L C were modified with data acquired from multiphase experiment in order to account for different flow patterns. Minimum Transport Velocity (MTV) models for suspension and rolling were developed by combining the numerically developed particle velocity profile models with semi‐empirical models for solid particle transport. The models took into account the critical parameters that influence particle transport in pipe flow such as flow patterns and particle drag & lift coefficients, thus eliminate inaccuracies currently experienced with similar models in public domain. The predictions of the proposed MTV models for suspension and rolling in dispersed bubble, slug flow and annular flow show maximum average error margin of 12% when compared with experimental data. The improved models were validated using previously reported experimental data and were shown to have better predictions when compared with existing models in public domain. These models have the potential to solve the problems of pipe and equipment sizing, the risk of sand deposition and bed formation, elimination of costs of sand unloading, downtime and generally improve sand management strategies.

This dissertation presents the development and validation of the One Dimensional Turbulence (ODT) multiphase model in the Lagrangian reference frame. ODT is a stochastic model that captures the full range of length and time scales and provides statistical information on fine-scale turbulent-particle mixing and transport at low computational cost. The flow evolution is governed by a deterministic solution of the viscous processes and a stochastic representation of advection through stochastic domain mapping processes. The three algorithms for Lagrangian particle transport are presented within the context of the ODT approach. The Type-I and -C models consider the particle-eddy interaction as instantaneous and continuous change of the particle position and velocity, respectively. The Type-IC model combines the features of the Type-I and -C models. The models are applied to the multiphase flows in the homogeneous decaying turbulence and turbulent round jet. Particle dispersion, dispersion coefficients, and velocity statistics are predicted and compared with experimental data. The models accurately reproduces the experimental data sets and capture particle inertial effects and trajectory crossing effect. A new adjustable particle parameter is introduced into the ODT model, and sensitivity analysis is performed to facilitate parameter estimation and selection. A novel algorithm of the two-way momentum coupling between the particle and carrier phases is developed in the ODT multiphase model. Momentum exchange between the phases is accounted for through particle source terms in the viscous diffusion. The source term is implemented in eddy events through a new kernel transformation and an iterative procedure is required for eddy selection. This model is applied to a particle-laden turbulent jet flow, and simulation results are compared with experimental measurements. The effect of particle addition on the velocities of the gas phase is investigated. The development of particle velocity and particle number distribution are illustrated. The simulation results indicate that the model qualitatively captures the turbulent modulation with the presence of difference particle classes with different solid loadings. The model is then extended to simulate temperature evolution of the particles in a nonisothermal hot jet, in which heat transfer between the particles and gas is considered. The flow is bounded by a wall on the one side of the domain. The simulations are performed over a range of particle inertia and thermal relaxation time scales and different initial particle locations. The present study investigates the post-blast-phase mixing between the particles, the environment that is intended to heat them up, and the ambient environment that dilutes the jet flow. The results indicate that the model can qualitatively predict the important particle statistics in jet flame.

No description available.