Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 2003. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 334-335).

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 75 p. : ill. (some col.). Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-74).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 301-310). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 64 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 62-64).

For many projects involving drilled shafts, cores are required to be taken below the shaft base for visual identification of the underlying material. For example, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) requires a core length of at least 1.5 m (5 ft) or equal to the shaft diameter, whichever is greater, at the shaft base. Although the verification cores are to be extracted at the shaft base, The Department of Transportation of many states do not provide guidance to eliminate the effect of the verification core on the point bearing capacity. A recent study shows that the verification core hole is either filled with concrete in dry condition or with sand-gravel mixture in wet pour (Raibagkar, 2008). This finding is crucial because the point bearing capacity of drilled shafts with an empty hole at the base should be significantly lower than that of drilled shafts without verification core. Although the materials that fill in the verification core remove the risk of losing large point bearing capacity, the exposure of the core holes to air-drying may have an adverse effect on the point bearing capacity tipped in clay shales, especially when the basal material is susceptible to weathering. Therefore, the effect of the verification core on the point bearing capacity has been thoroughly investigated with emphasis on changes in the material properties of four clay shales (Del Rio Clay, Eagle Ford Shale, Taylor Marl, and Navarro Shale) in central Texas. The effect of verification core on the point bearing capacity of drilled shafts was investigated using finite element method (FEM) software, PLAXIS. The results from laboratory tests were converted to input material parameters for Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion, and the thickness of degraded zone around the core was interpreted from fullscale condition degradation tests. The load-displacement curves at the shaft base were created from PLAXIS analyses, and the point bearing capacities were obtained at 5%D and 10%D displacement from load-displacement curves. These capacities were used to calculate reduction factors that relate the point bearing capacity of the reference model (without a verification core) with that of the “core models” (with a verification core). The reduction factors are good indicators to determine if verification core had a positive or negative effect on the point bearing capacity. It was found that the reduction in point bearing capacity of “core models” is typically within 10% capacity of the reference model, and a maximum reduction of 14% was found for the Taylor Marl that was dried for 48 hours. / text

published_or_final_version / Civil Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

This work reviews concepts in drilling-based learning curves and proposes modifications to the Brett and Millheim learning curve model to enable its use for multiple learners and to characterize interaction effects between learners. Enabling the model’s use for multiple learning scenarios at once improves modeling efficiency. Interaction effects are present when learners improve from their own experience and the experience of those in close proximity to them. Quantifying interaction effects leads to a more complete understanding of performance improvement and enables more effective forecasting of drilling resources and expenditure requirements. / text

Acoustic, electromagnetic (EM), and nuclear open-hole measurements are affected by fluids saturating near-wellbore porous and permeable rock formations, including hydrocarbons, water, and mud filtrate. Fluid invasion effects can be quantified and advantageously used to estimate petrophysical properties of the invaded rock formations. This dissertation incorporates the physics of water-base mud- (WBM) and oil-base mud- (OBM) filtrate invasion to the simulation and inversion of borehole EM measurements. We assume vertical boreholes penetrating clastic hydrocarbon- or water-bearing formations subject to either WBM- or OBM-filtrate invasion. The simulation of EM measurements in the presence of mud-filtrate invasion considers three different approaches: (1) piston-like invasion profiles, where we solely consider invaded- (flushed) and virgin- (uncontaminated) zones, (2) two-phase immiscible displacement and salt mixing between the invading WBM filtrate and connate water, and (3) invasion of single or multi-component OBM-filtrate into a formation saturated with multiple hydrocarbon components wherein the individual components are first-contact miscible. The last two approaches honor the physics of mudcake growth as well as the petrophysical properties that govern the process of multi-phase, multi-component fluid-flow displacement and include the presence of irreducible, capillary-bound and movable water. Electromagnetic measurements are simulated from spatial distributions of electrical resistivity calculated from the simulations of mud-filtrate invasion using clean- or shaly-sand water-saturationresistivity models. Inversion of petrophysical properties is posed as the nonlinear minimization of quadratic objective functions that quantify the misfit between EM measurements and their simulations. In the case of WBM piston-like invasion profiles in water-bearing formations, combined inversion of array-induction resistivity and spontaneous potential (SP) measurements yields connate water electrical resistivity and Archie’s cementation exponent. Permeability is calculated from the inversion of array-induction resistivity measurements assuming immiscible fluid-flow displacement of WBM into hydrocarbonbearing formations. Accurate reconstructions of layer-by-layer permeability are primarily constrained by the availability of a-priori information about time of invasion, rate of mud-filtrate invasion, overbalance pressure, capillary pressure, and relative permeability. This dissertation also quantifies the influence of petrophysical and fluid properties on borehole resistivity measurements acquired in the presence of compositional mixing of OBM filtrate invading partially hydrocarbon-saturated rock formations. Numerical simulations of OBM-filtrate invasion are performed with an adaptive-implicit compositional formulation that allows one to quantify the effects of additional components of mud-filtrate and native fluids on EM measurements. Perturbations of petrophysical and fluid properties enable the quantification of rock wettability changes due to OBM-filtrate invasion and their effect on the simulated induction resistivity measurements. Finally, simulations of induction resistivity measurements in the presence of OBM are compared to the corresponding measurements in the presence of WBMfiltrate invasion. The latter analysis allows us to estimate a realistic flow rate of OBMfiltrate invasion that is responsible for the variation of induction resistivity measurements as a function of their radial length of response. The combined simulation of the physics of mud-filtrate invasion and EM measurements provides reliable estimates of true formation resistivity and hence of water saturation, thereby improving the assessment of in-place hydrocarbons reserves. / text

The aim of this research is to improve the understanding of the impact on the cochlear dynamics corresponding to surgical tools, processes and hearing implants such that these can be designed more appropriately in the future. The results suggest that enhanced performance of implants can be achieved by optimisation of the location with respect to the cochlea and have shown that robotic surgical tools used to enable precise, simplified processes can reduce harm and offer other benefits. With an ageing population, and where exposure to noise on daily basis is increased rather than industrial settings, at least two factors of age and noise, will contribute to a greater incidence of hearing loss in the population in the future. In the research a mathematical model of the passive cochlea was produced to increase understanding of the sensitivity and behaviour of the fluid, structure and pressure transients within the cochlea. The investigation has been complemented by an innovative experimental technique developed to evaluate the dynamics in the cochlear fluids while maintaining the integrity of the cochlear structure. This technique builds on the success of the state-of-the-art surgical robotic micro-drill. The micro-drill enables removal of bone tissue to prepare a consistent aperture onto the endosteal membrane within the cochlea. This is known as preparing a ‘Third window’. In this technique the motion of the exposed endosteal membrane is treated as the diaphragm element of a pressure transducer and is measured using a Micro- Scanning Laser Vibrometer operating through a microscope. There are two principal outcomes of the research: First, the approach has enabled disturbances in the cochlea to be contrasted for different surgical techniques, which it is expected to allude preferential methods in future surgery in otology. In particular it was shown that when using the robotic micro-drill to create a cochleostomy that the disturbance amplitude reduces to 1% of that experienced when using conventional drilling. Secondly, an empirically derived frequency map of the cochlea has been produced to understand how the location of implants affects maximum power transmission over the required frequency band. This has also shown the feasibility of exciting the cochlea at a third window in order to amplify cochlear response.

Not available / text