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The objective of this study was to characterize non-wetting fluid in multi-phase systems comprising a range of fluid and porous medium properties. Synchrotron X-ray microtomography was used to obtain high-resolution, three-dimensional images of fluids in natural porous media. Images were processed to obtain quantitative measurements of fluid distribution, morphology, and interfacial area. Column-flooding experiments were conducted with four enhanced-solubilization (ES) solutions to examine their impact on entrapped organic liquid. Mobilization caused a change in organic-liquid morphology and distribution for most experiments. The effect of ES-solution flooding on fluid-fluid interfacial area was similar to that of water flooding. Organic-liquid mobilization was observed at total trapping numbers that were smaller than expected. This was attributed to pore-scale mobilization of blobs that were re-trapped prior to being eluted from the column. Pore-scale mobilization was also observed during water-flooding experiments for which trapping numbers varied over several orders of magnitude. Water-flooding and surfactant-flooding experiments were compared to investigate the impact of interfacial tension, viscosity, and fluid velocity on entrapped organic liquid. For similar total trapping numbers, flooding at larger velocities appeared to have a greater effect on the distribution of non-wetting blobs than lowering interfacial tension or increasing the viscosity of the wetting fluid. The fluid-normalized interfacial area was generally independent of the total trapping number. Finally, the impact of fluid type on the interfacial area between different pairs of non-wetting fluids was investigated during drainage and imbibition in four natural porous media. Interfacial areas were similar among all fluid pairs for a given porous medium. They were also similar for drainage and imbibition conditions. The maximum specific interfacial area (A(m)) was determined to quantify the magnitude of interfacial area associated with a given porous medium. The value of A(m) was larger for the media with smaller median grain diameters. Therefore, physical properties of the porous medium appear to have a greater influence on the magnitude of specific total interfacial area for a given saturation than fluid properties or wetting-phase history.

Emulsion explosives have become the preferred choice as blasting agents for numerous industries including mining, agriculture, and construction. One of the most important components in such an emulsion is an emulsifier, which controls the emulsification properties of the explosive. The present study involves the production of one such emulsifier, which is produced by reacting two immiscible liquids, PIBSA (polyisobutylene succinic anhydride) and MEA (monoethanolamine). The study examines the effect of design variable such as the impeller speed, impeller type and the dispersed phase volume fraction on interfacial area. Experiments were carried out in a 0.15 m diameter fully baffled stirred tank using a 6-bladed Rushton turbine impeller and a marine propeller. Drop size was determined using a microscope with a video camera and image processing system. The transient concentration of PIBSA was determined using FTIR analysis and used to estimate the volume fraction of the dispersed phase (ƒÖ). The effective interfacial area was calculated using the Sauter mean drop diameter, d32 and ƒÖ. Impeller speeds ranging from 150 to 600 rpm and dispersed phase volume fractions, ƒÖ ranging from 0.01 to 0.028 were examined in the experimental study. It was found that that the evolution of Sauter mean drop diameter, d32 has four different trends depending on ƒÖ and impeller speed. At high impeller speeds and high ƒÖ, d32 values decrease initially and reach constant values after a long period of time. This trend is consistent with the findings in previous investigations. Under certain operating conditions, d32 values increase initially with stirring time to reach a maximum value and then decrease to reach a steady state value. The presence of these trends has been attributed to the effect of changing physical properties of the system as a result of chemical reaction. Results indicate that, in general, Sauter mean drop diameter d32 decreases with an increase in agitation intensity. However a decrease in the dispersed phase volume fraction is found to increase d32. These trends are found to be the same for both impeller types studied. Comparing the drop size results produced by the two impellers, it appears that low-power number propeller produces s ignificantly smaller drops than the Rushton turbine. It was found that the concentrations of reactants decrease with time for all impeller speeds thereby leading to a decrease in interfacial area with the progress of the reaction. Interfacial area values obtained at higher impeller speeds are found to be lower in spite of lower d32 values at these speeds. Also, these values decrease with time and become zero in a shorter duration indicating the rapid depletion of MEA. The interfacial area values obtained with the propeller at a given impeller speed are lower as compared to those for Rushton turbine. They also decrease and become zero in a shorter duration as compared to those for Rushton turbine suggesting propeller¡¦s performance is better in enhancing the reaction rate.

<div>With the rapid development of the advanced two-phase flow experimental technologies, more experimental databases with extended measurement ranges have been established to support the two-phase flow model development. The advantage of the Two Fluid model in modeling the complex two-phase flow phenomena over the mixture models stands out. One key aspect in the Two Fluid model development is the accurate modeling of the interfacial area between phases, which is strongly related to the interfacial mass, momentum, and energy transfer. As a closure relation of interfacial area concentration (interfacial area per unit volume) for the Two Fluid model, the Interfacial Area Transport Equation (IATE) provides dynamic predictions on the interfacial area change. It substantially solves the shortcoming of using flow-regime-dependent empirical correlations that can introduce numerical discontinuities between flow regimes. </div><div><br></div><div>The IATE has been extensively developed over the past twenty-five years. Many studies targeted on improving its prediction capability by developing bubble interaction source terms based on their experimental data. </div><div>The existing models are usually based on medium and large flow channels, yet the models may not be physically fit the small flow channels. The major reason is that the wall effect can have a larger influence on the two-phase flow in a small flow channel, as the surface area to volume ratio greatly increases. Therefore, the primary objectives of this study are to physically investigate the wall effect on two-phase flow and develop a generalized IATE by extending the application range of existing IATE from large and medium flow channels to small flow channel.</div><div><br></div><div>To achieve the objective, this study established a rigorous database of air-water two-phase flows in a small diameter pipe with its inner diameter of 12.7 mm, focusing on the bubbly-to-slug transition regime. The experimental analysis was performed on the pipe wall effect on the interfacial characteristics, based on the current experimental database and the existing experimental database collected on vertical pipes of different sizes. It is observed that 1) the pipe wall effect can alter the non-uniform radial two-phase distribution; 2) the bubbly-to-slug flow regime transition in a small diameter pipe happens in a smaller void fraction than in a large diameter pipe; 3) the bubble coalescence phenomenon can be more dominant for small pipe flow, and an intensive intergroup transfer can happen for the two-group interfacial area transport in two-phase flows. </div><div>As the interfacial area transport is directly related to the two-phase geometrical configuration, the two-phase geometrical parameters, void fraction and relative bubble size, are identified as the key parameters for modeling.</div><div><br></div><div>In the modeling of IATE source terms, the high geometrical scalability of the model is realized by properly including the wall effect into the modeling consideration. The following major improvements on the existing models are: 1) the inertia subrange assumption on the turbulent-driven interaction is properly improved; 2) the bubble-induced turbulent-driven interactions such as wake entrainment is revised by considering the wall effect on the wake region. In summary, models of bubble interaction due to random collision, wake entrainment, turbulent impact, and shearing-off are revised based on the existing studies on the IATE source terms development. The newly proposed interfacial area transport models are evaluated against an experimental database with 112 test conditions in total from a wide range of experimental pipe diameters from 12.7 mm to 304.8 mm. The new models can accurately capture the drastic intergroup transfer of void fraction and interfacial area concentration between two groups in transition flows. Overall, the relative error of void fraction and interfacial area concentration comparing with the experimental data are within ±15\% and ±10\%, respectively.</div>

Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) have attracted tremendous attention due to their flexibility, transparency, easy processiblity and low cost of fabrication. High-performance OFETs are required for their potential applications in the organic electronic devices such as flexible display, integrated circuit, and radiofrequency identification tags. One of the major limiting factors in fabricating high-performance OFET is the large interfacial barrier between metal electrodes and OSC which results in low charge injection from the metal electrodes to OSC. In order to overcome the challenge of low charge injection, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been suggested as a promising electrode material for organic electronic devices. In this dissertation, we study the effect of carbon nanotube (CNT) density in CNT electrodes on the performance of organic field effect transistor (OFETs). The devices were fabricated by thermal evaporation of pentacene on the Pd/single walled CNT (SWCNT) electrodes where SWCNTs of different density (0-30/um) were aligned on Pd using dielectrophoresis (DEP) and cut via oxygen plasma etching to keep the length of nanotube short compared to the channel length. From the electronic transport measurements of 40 devices, we show that the average saturation mobility of the devices increased from 0.02 for zero SWCNT to 0.06, 0.13 and 0.19 cm2/Vs for low (1-5 /µm), medium (10-15 /µm) and high (25-30 /µm) SWCNT density in the electrodes, respectively. The increase is three, six and nine times for low, medium and high density SWCNTs in the electrode compared to the devices that did not contain any SWCNT. In addition, the current on-off ratio and on-current of the devices are increased up v to 40 times and 20 times with increasing SWCNT density in the electrodes. Our study shows that although a few nanotubes in the electrode can improve the OFET device performance, significant improvement can be achieved by maximizing SWCNT/OSC interfacial area. The improved OFET performance can be explained due to a reduced barrier height of SWCNT/pentacene interface compared to metal/pentacene interface which provides more efficient charge injection pathways with increased SWCNT/pentacene interfacial area.

Fossil fuel is an important energy source, but is unavoidabiy running out. Since the cellulosic material is the most abundant source of organic matter, the ethanol, which is produced from cellulosic waste materials, is gaining more and more attention. These materials are cheap, renewable and their availability makes them superior compared to other raw materials. The cellulose must be hydrolyzed to glucose before it can be fermented to ethanol. The enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose using cellulase enzymes is the most widely used method. The production cost of cellulase enzymes is the major cost in ethanol manufacture. To optimize the cost of ethanol production, enzyme stability needs to be improved through maintaining the activity of the enzymes and by optimizing the production of the cellulase. The aim of researchers, engineers and industrials is to get more biomass for the same cost. The filamentous fungus Trichoderma reesei has a long history in the production of the cellulase enzymes. This production can be influenced strongly by varying the growth media and culture conditions (pH, temperature, DO, agitation,... ). At present, it is my opinion that no modelling study has included both the hydrodynamic and kinetic aspects to investigate the effect of shear and mass transfer on the morphology of microorganisms that influence the rheology of the broth and production of cellulase. This thesis presents the development of a mathematical model for cellulase production and the growth of biomass in an airlift bioreactor. The kinetic model is coupled with the methodology of two-phase flow using mathematical models based on the bubble break-up and coalescence to predict mass transfer rate, which is one of the critical factor in the fermentation. A comparison between the results obtained by the developed model and the experimental data is given and discussed. The design proposed for the airlift geometry by Ahamed and Vermette enables us to get a high mass transfer and production rate. The results are very promising with respect to the potential of such a model for industrial use as a prediction tool, and even for design.

Uma nova metodologia para a medida não intrusiva da fração volumétrica e da área interfacial é proposta neste trabalho, com base em redes neurais para processar respostas obtidas de sinais acústicos. A distribuição geométrica das fases dentro do escoamento é mapeada pela velocidade local de propagação acústica, considerada na equação diferencial que governa o problema. Esta equação é resolvida numericamente pelo método de diferenças finitas com as condições de contorno reproduzindo a estratégia de pulso/eco. Um número significativo de distribuições das velocidades de propagação foi considerado na solução da equação diferencial para construir uma base de dados, da qual os parâmetros da rede podem ser ajustados. Especificamente, o modelo neural é construído para mapear características extraídas dos sinais obtidos de quatro sensores acústicos, localizados no contorno externo do domínio de sensoriamento, estimando a fração volumétrica e a área interfacial correspondentes. Estas características correspondem às amplitudes e aos tempos de chegada dos três maiores picos da onda acústica. Os resultados numéricos mostram que o modelo neural pode ser treinado em um tempo computacional razoável e é capaz de estimar os valores da fração volumétrica e da área interfacial dos exemplos do conjunto de teste. / A new methodology for measuring the volumetric fraction and interfacial area in two-phase flows is proposed in this work, based on neural network for processing the responses obtained from an acoustic interrogation signal. The geometrical distribution of the phases within the flow is mapped by the local acoustic propagation velocity which is considered in the governing differential equation. This equation is solved numerically by the finite difference method with boundary conditions reproducing the pulse/echo strategy. A significant number of propagation velocities distributions were considered in the solution of the differential equation in order to construct a database from which the neural model parameters could be adjusted. Specifically, the neural model is constructed to map the features extracted from the signals delivered by four acoustic sensors, placed on the external boundary of the sensing domain, into the corresponding volumetric fraction and interfacial area. These features correspond to the amplitudes and the times of arrival on the three first peaks of the acoustic wave. Numerical results showed that the neural model can be trained in a reasonable computational time and it is capable of estimating the values of the volumetric fraction and the interfacial area of examples of the set of test.

Für die Untersuchung von Luft/Wasser-Strömungen wurde ein horizontaler Acrylglas-Kanal mit rechteckigem Querschnitt gebaut. Der Kanal ermöglicht Gleich- und Gegenstrom-Versuche bei Atmosphärendruck, insbesondere die Untersuchung der Schwallströmung. Es wurden optische Messungen mit einer Hochgeschwindigkeits-Kamera durchgeführt, die durch synchronisierte dynamische Druckmessungen ergänzt wurden. Für die Analyse der Bilder wurde eine Methode zur Erfassung der Phasengrenze entwickelt und diese anhand möglicher Anwendungen getestet. Die Druckmessungen zeigten, dass der Druck bei Schwallströmungen um einige Kilopascal ansteigt und wieder abfällt, sobald der Schwall aus dem Kanal austritt. Zudem wurden Geschwindigkeiten in der flüssigen Phase mittels nicht invasiver Verfahren gemessen. Das durchschnittliche Geschwindigkeits-Profil am Kanaleintritt wurde mit Ultraschall-Köpfen bestimmt. Die Ermittlung des Geschwindigkeitsfeldes in einem Schwall erfolgte mit PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry).

Uma nova metodologia para a medida não intrusiva da fração volumétrica e da área interfacial é proposta neste trabalho, com base em redes neurais para processar respostas obtidas de sinais acústicos. A distribuição geométrica das fases dentro do escoamento é mapeada pela velocidade local de propagação acústica, considerada na equação diferencial que governa o problema. Esta equação é resolvida numericamente pelo método de diferenças finitas com as condições de contorno reproduzindo a estratégia de pulso/eco. Um número significativo de distribuições das velocidades de propagação foi considerado na solução da equação diferencial para construir uma base de dados, da qual os parâmetros da rede podem ser ajustados. Especificamente, o modelo neural é construído para mapear características extraídas dos sinais obtidos de quatro sensores acústicos, localizados no contorno externo do domínio de sensoriamento, estimando a fração volumétrica e a área interfacial correspondentes. Estas características correspondem às amplitudes e aos tempos de chegada dos três maiores picos da onda acústica. Os resultados numéricos mostram que o modelo neural pode ser treinado em um tempo computacional razoável e é capaz de estimar os valores da fração volumétrica e da área interfacial dos exemplos do conjunto de teste. / A new methodology for measuring the volumetric fraction and interfacial area in two-phase flows is proposed in this work, based on neural network for processing the responses obtained from an acoustic interrogation signal. The geometrical distribution of the phases within the flow is mapped by the local acoustic propagation velocity which is considered in the governing differential equation. This equation is solved numerically by the finite difference method with boundary conditions reproducing the pulse/echo strategy. A significant number of propagation velocities distributions were considered in the solution of the differential equation in order to construct a database from which the neural model parameters could be adjusted. Specifically, the neural model is constructed to map the features extracted from the signals delivered by four acoustic sensors, placed on the external boundary of the sensing domain, into the corresponding volumetric fraction and interfacial area. These features correspond to the amplitudes and the times of arrival on the three first peaks of the acoustic wave. Numerical results showed that the neural model can be trained in a reasonable computational time and it is capable of estimating the values of the volumetric fraction and the interfacial area of examples of the set of test.