Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, June, 1997. / Title from PDF t.p.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Tulsa, 1991. / Bibliography: leaves 172-174.

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Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, June, 1997. / Title from PDF t.p.

Although the flow of granular material in silos and the pressure acting on the silo walls have been studied for over a century, many challenges still remain in silo design. In particular, during the discharge process some dynamic phenomena in silos can often be observed to display large, self-induced and dynamic pulsations which may endanger the stability of the silo structure. The aim of this thesis is to study the flow and pressure in silos using numerical modelling and analytical methods, and to further understand the mechanical behaviour of granular material and mechanism of dynamic phenomena during silo discharge. The Finite Element (FE) method can be used to analyse the behaviour of the granular material in silos by considering the material as a continuum. In this thesis, FEM modelling of silo flow was developed using the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) formulation in the Abaqus/Explicit program and the key parameters that affect the predictions of the flow and pressure during discharge were identified. Using the ALE technique, almost the entire silo discharge process can be simulated without mesh distortion problems. The mass flow rate and temporally averaged discharge pressure predicted by the FE model were first investigated in a conical hopper and were found to be in good agreement with those from the most commonly quoted theoretical solutions. The transient dynamic pressure fluctuations during incipient silo discharge were predicted and the causes for these dynamic events have been investigated which led to the conclusion that the stress wave propagation and the moving shear zone phenomena within the bulk solid were responsible for the dominant higher and lower frequencies effects respectively. A one-dimensional dynamic model of granular columns subject to Coulomb wall friction was developed to investigate the propagation of stress waves, focusing on the effect of geometry by examining converging and diverging tapered columns. The analytical solutions of this model are compared to the FE model based on the ALE formulation. This FE model was first validated using the known behaviour for cylindrical columns. In all cases, the stress impulse set off by incipient discharge at the silo outlet grew with the distance travelled up the column, however the rate was shown to depend on the halfangle of the taper. Over a range of small angles, the proposed analytical model was found to accurately predict this behaviour. After the successful application of the ALE technique for a conical hopper, the FE model was extended to simulate the granular flow in a flat-bottomed model silo. The FE predictions were compared with the silo pressure measurements in a model silo (Rotter et al, 2004). Pressure cells mounted along a vertical line on the silo walls were used to measure the pressure distribution in the silo tests using dry sand. The FE model was further extended to simulate the granular flow in a model silo consisting of a cylindrical section with a conical hopper. The prediction was compared with the experimental observations from a model silo (Munch-Andersen et al, 1992), together with the well-known theoretical solutions. Two numerical issues were addressed in some detail: one is the numerical treatment of the abrupt transition between the cylinder section and the conical hopper, the other is the interaction between the granular solid and the silo walls that was modelled using a dynamic friction model. In addition, the dynamic pressure events during discharge were examined and plausible explanations were given. Finally, this thesis deployed a non-coaxial elastoplastic constitutive model to explore the effect of non-coaxiality on silo phenomena. The non-coaxial FE modelling was performed on three problems: a simple shear test under various initial conditions, a steep hopper and a flat-bottomed silo. The results show that non-coaxiality did not influence the prediction of wall pressure during filling and storing, on the other hand, the discharge pressure was predicted to be larger when non-coaxiality is considered.

Experimental work has been carried out with a hydraulic flow test rig in which flows of water up to 65 kgs-l can be measured with a weigh-tank and its diverter valve to an accurary of ± 0.2%. The nature of the experimental work has been to investigate the system pressure losses due to the components in line (i) For interference free flow; (ii) For interactions. The components used are 90 degree circular bends and orifice plates. Bends of radius ratios from R/D - 1.49 to 4.89 and nominally standard single-hole and multi-hole orifice plates of area ratios from m – 0.170 to 0.508 have been tested. To investigate the interaction effects arising from an orifice plate in proximity to bends, various bend-orifice plate (in a few instances orifice plate-bend) combinations have been arranged. The bore diameter of duct (or pipe) and bend is approximately D – 145.05 mm and tests have been performed for Reynolds numbers ranging from Re(D) – 0.7 x 105 to 6 x 10(5). In those instances in which results from the experimental work can be compared directly with published results, agreement is good. However, many of the experimental results, particularly the measurements of interactions between bends and orifice plates, are new.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio University, June, 2000. / Title from PDF t.p.

Heavy oil production has drawn more and more attention in petroleum industry. The amount of heavy oil in the world is twice more than the conventional oil (low viscosity), which has been consumed rapidly from the past. The understanding of flow patterns and pressure losses in multiphase flow with high viscosity oil are vital to assist the design of transportation pipeline. This thesis involves experimental investigation of two phase and three phase flows under high oil viscosity conditions (up to 17000cP) in horizontal pipelines. The multiphase (oil/water/solid/gas) facility was designed and constructed at Cranfield University and consists of 6m long horizontal pipeline of 0.026m diameter along with instrumentations. The principal objectives of the work were to study the effect of viscosity, water cut, temperature variance, and flow conditions on flow patterns and pressure drops for (oil/gas and oil/water) two phase flows; to compare the measured flow parameters and phase distribution with those predicted from models found in the literature for two phase flows; and to conduct an experimental study of gas injection effect on pressure gradient in (oil/water/gas) three phase flow. Due to the nature of heavy oil reservoirs, sand is associated with oil/water mixture when extracted; therefore sand concentration effect on pressure drop in (oil/water/sand) three phase flow is also examined. For oil-air flow, a smooth oil coating was observed in the film region of slug flow, while a ripple structure of oil coating film was found at higher superficial air velocity for slug flow regime and annular flow regime. The ripple structure was believed to increase the effective roughness of the pipe wall, which resulted in higher pressure gradients. The pressure drop correlations from Beggs and Brill (1973) and Dukler et al. (1964) were used to compare with experimental pressure gradients for oil/air flow. It was found that these correlations failed to predict the pressure gradients for heavy oil/air flows in this work. Several new heavy oil/water flow patterns were named and categorized based on observations. Though the heavy oil viscosity is an essential parameter for oil continuous phase flow on pressure drop, it had no significant effect beyond Water Assist Flow (WAF) condition, as a threshold was found for water cut with fixed superficial oil velocity. The transition criterion by McKibben et al. (2000b) for WAF was found to be able to predict this threshold reasonably well. Core Annular Flow (CAF) models were found to greatly under predict the pressure gradients mainly due to the coating (oil fouling) effect associated with this study. A new coating coefficient was introduced to models presented by Bannwart (2001) and Rodriguez et al (2009). The addition of solid in the mixed flow led to minor increase in the pressure gradient when the particles were moving with the flow. However, higher sand concentration in the system led to higher pressure gradient values. The addition of gaseous phase to the oil/water flow was more complex. The gaseous injection was beneficial toward reducing the pressure gradient when introduced in oil continuous phase only at very low water cuts.

The aortic valve functions in a complex mechanical environment which leads to force dependent cellular and tissue responses. Characterization of these responses provides a fundamental understanding of valve pathogenesis. The aim of this work was to develop an ex vivo organ culture system capable of simulating physiological aortic pressures and flow rates, and study the biological characteristics of native porcine aortic valves cultured in the system. Collagen, sGAG and elastin content of the valve leaflets were measured and cusp morphology, cell phenotype, cell proliferation and apoptosis were examined. Presence of endothelial cells (ECs) on the leaflet surface was also evaluated. The differences in collagen, sGAG and elastin contents were not significant (p greater than0.05) between the cultured and fresh valve leaflets. The cultured valves maintained the structural integrity of the leaflets while preserving the native morphology and cell phenotype. Cell phenotype in leaflets incubated statically under atmospheric conditions decreased compared to fresh and cultured valve leaflets, indicating the importance of mechanical forces in maintaining the natural biology of the valve leaflets. ECs were retained on the surfaces of cultured leaflets with no remodeling of the leaflets. The number of apoptotic cells in the cultured leaflets was significantly (p less than 0.05) less than in the statically incubated leaflets and comparable to fresh leaflets. The sterile ex vivo organ culture system thus maintained the viability and native biological characteristics of the aortic valves that were cultured under dynamic conditions for a period of 48 hours.

Práce se zabývá návrhem stabilního a rychlého bezdrátového spojení mezi dvěma body. K vytvoření tohoto spojení bude použita technologie Bluetooth a nebo její moderní alternativy vzhledem k tomu, že tato technologie již byla v daném pracovním prostředí testována a byla prokázána její stabilita. V této práci a v navazující diplomové práci budou diskutovány výsledky časových analýz zvolených senzorů, komunikace mezi senzorem a zvoleným mikrokontrolerem a nakonec návrh kompletního řešení, na jehož základě bude vytvořen funkční prototyp požadovaného zařízení.