The steady flow method (SFM), most commonly used for permeability measurement in the laboratory, is not applicable for tight rocks, higher rank coals and coals under highly stressed condition because of the difficulty in measuring steady-state gas flowrates resulting from the tight rock structure of. However, accurate estimation of permeability of highly stressed coals is pivotal in coalbed methane (CBM) operations in order to precisely and effectively model and project long-term gas production. A fast and accurate permeability measurement technique is, therefore, required to investigate gas flow behavior of CBM reservoirs. The pulse-decay method (PDM) of permeability measurement is believed to be better suited for low-permeability rocks. In this study, application of the currently used pulse-decay laboratory permeability measurement techniques for highly stressed coals were evaluated. Considering the limitations of these techniques in permeability measurement of unconventional gas reservoirs, such as coal and gas shales, the conventional PDM was optimized by adjusting the experimental apparatus and procedures. Furthermore, the applicability of an optimized PDM was verified numerically and experimentally. This dissertation is composed of five chapters. To complete the research objectives as discussed above, it is necessary to have a profound understanding of the basic theories, such as, gas storage mechanism, gas migration, and permeability evolution during gas depletion in coalbed reservoirs. In Chapter 1, a brief discussion regarding the basic knowledge of reservoir properties and transport mechanisms is presented. The chapter also provides the appropriate background and rationale for the theoretical and experimental work conducted in this study. Chapter 2 presents the transient pressure-decay technique in permeability measurement of highly stressed coals and verifies the validity of Brace et al.’s solution (1968) by comparing it with Dicker and Smits’s solution (1988) and Cui et al.’s solution. The differences between these three solutions are discussed in detail. Based on the established permeability trends from these different solutions, a persuasive suggestion is presented for selection of the best alternative when testing coal permeability. Furthermore, permeability is regarded as a coupled parameter, resulting from the combined effects of mechanical compression and “matrix shrinkage” caused by desorption of gas. To isolate the role of gas desorption from the coupled result, a series of experiments were carried out under constant effective stress condition and a stress-dependent permeability trend was established. Chapter 3 proposes an optimized experimental design in order to improve the accuracy of the calculated permeability for sorptive rocks. In order to verify the optimized design theoretically, a modified mathematical model is presented and describes the one-dimensional fluid flow in porous media by a partial differential equation. The numerical solutions of the model are presented graphically to evaluate the fluid flow behavior in porous media. Finally, the validity of Brace et al.’s solution when testing sorptive rocks, without the need of consideration on the compressive storage and sorption effect, is elucidated. Chapter 4 demonstrates the efficiency and applicability of the optimized PDM through its direct application to experimental work designed to establish the permeability trend under best replicated in situ conditions. In this chapter, CO2 was used as the test fluid to profile and characterize the pulse decay plots due to its higher affinity towards coal than methane, and then establish the stress-dependent-permeability trend for highly-stressed CBM reservoirs. In this chapter, Brace et al.’s solution was also verified by comparing the laboratory data and computer simulated results obtained from the optimized mathematical model proposed in Chapter 3. The experimental work demonstrates that the optimized technique can be used for permeability tests of sorptive rocks without the need to carry out additional experimental work required to measure rock porosities and sorption isotherms. Finally, a summary and future research perspectives are presented in Chapter 5.

No abstract is provided. / Thesis / Master of Engineering (MEngr) / Scope and contents: The aim of this thesis is to present a finite difference method, for analysing coupled shear walls with constant or variable cross-section, resting on rigid or elastic foundations and with elastic or inelastic connecting beams. It is also intended to compare the finite difference method with the continuous connection method, which can be developed using Rosman's approach or Newmark's concept for analysing composite beams or the energy approach, and with the finite element method. An analysis of coupled shear walls with multiple piers is presented.

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No / This paper presents an investigation into the impact of data dependencies in real-time high performance sequential and parallel processing. An adaptive active vibration control algorithm is considered to demonstrate the impact of data dependencies in real-time computing. The algorithm is analysed in detail to explore the inherent data dependencies. To minimize the impact of data dependencies, an investigation into reducing memory access in sequential computing is provided. The impact of data dependencies with various interconnections is also explored and demonstrated in real-time parallel processing through a set of experiments.

A one-dimensional model of a heterogeneous material consisting of a matrix with embedded separated particles is considered, and the melting or solidification of the particles is investigated. The matrix is in imperfect contact with the particles, and the lumped capacity approximation applies to each individual particle. Heat is generated inside the particles or is transferred from the matrix to the particles coupled through a contact conductance. The matrix is not allowed to change phase and energy is either generated inside the matrix or transferred from the boundaries, which is initially conducted through the matrix material. The physical model of this coupled, two-step heat transfer process is solved using the energy method. The investigation is conducted in several phases using a building block approach. First, a lumped capacity system during phase transition is studied, then a one-dimensional homogeneous material during phase change is investigated, and finally the one-dimensional heterogeneous material is analyzed. A numerical solution based on the finite difference method is used to solve the model equations. This method allows for any kind of boundary conditions, any combination of material properties, particle sizes and contact conductance. In addition, computer programs, using Mathematica, are developed for the lumped capacity system, homogeneous material, and heterogeneous material. Results show the effects of control volume thickness, time step, contact conductance, material properties, internal sources, and external sources. / Master of Science

Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is an intracellular protozoan parasite. The parasite can infect all warm-blooded vertebrates. Up to 30% of the world's human population carry a Toxoplasma infection. However, the transmission dynamics of T. gondii has not been well understood, although a lot of mathematical models have been built. In this thesis, we adopt a complex life cycle model developed by Turner et al. and extend their work to include diffusion of hosts. Most of researches focus on the deterministic models. However, some scientists have reported that deterministic models sometimes are inaccurate or even inapplicable to describe reaction-diffusion systems, such as gene expression. In this case stochastic models might have qualitatively different properties than its deterministic limit. Consequently, the transmission pathways of T. gondii and potential control mechanisms are investigated by both deterministic and stochastic model by us. A stochastic algorithm due to Gillespie, based on the chemical master equation, is introduced. A compartment-based model and a Smoluchowski equation model are described to simulate the diffusion of hosts. The parameter analyses are conducted based on the reproduction number. The analyses based on the deterministic model are verified by stochastic simulation near the thresholds of the parameters. / Master of Science

Today, heterogeneous computing has truly reshaped the way scientists think and approach high-performance computing (HPC). Hardware accelerators such as general-purpose graphics processing units (GPUs) and Intel Many Integrated Core (MIC) architecture continue to make in-roads in accelerating large-scale scientific applications. These advancements, however, introduce new sets of challenges to the scientific community such as: selection of best processor for an application, effective performance optimization strategies, maintaining performance portability across architectures etc. In this thesis, we present our techniques and approach to address some of these significant issues. Firstly, we present a fully automated approach to project the relative performance of an OpenCL program over different GPUs. Performance projections can be made within a small amount of time, and the projection overhead stays relatively constant with the input data size. As a result, the technique can help runtime tools make dynamic decisions about which GPU would run faster for a given kernel. Usage cases of this technique include scheduling or migrating GPU workloads over a heterogeneous cluster with different types of GPUs. We then present our approach to accelerate a seismology modeling application that is based on the finite difference method (FDM), using MPI and CUDA over a hybrid CPU+GPU cluster. We describe the generic computational complexities involved in porting such applications to the GPUs and present our strategy of efficient performance optimization and characterization. We also show how performance modeling can be used to reason and drive the hardware-specific optimizations on the GPU. The performance evaluation of our approach delivers a maximum speedup of 23-fold with a single GPU and 33-fold with dual GPUs per node over the serial version of the application, which in turn results in a many-fold speedup when coupled with the MPI distribution of the computation across the cluster. We also study the efficacy of GPU-integrated MPI, with MPI-ACC as an example implementation, in a seismology modeling application and discuss the lessons learned. / Master of Science