O principal objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar um procedimento de campo para testar o comprimento mínimo que fraturas devem ter para construir uma rede de fluxo em escala de dezenas de metros ao longo de maciços cristalinos. O comprimento mínimo é determinado a partir do limite de percolação, definido por modelos baseados na Teoria da Percolação e a densidade de fraturas no poço, determinada pela perfilagem ótica. Para testar o valor de 3,9 metros que foi encontrado, foram realizados bombeamentos em dois poços próximos enquanto o nível estático era registrado no poço de observação. O método apresenta facilidades em termos de operação e para obter-se o número de fraturas que interceptam o poço, no entanto o registro do nível estático é afetado por fatores externos, como presença de efeitos de maré e variação da pressão atmosférica, e correções são necessárias para permitir identificar a interferência proveniente somente do bombeamento. / The objective of this work is to develop a field procedure to determine a minimum characteristic length forming a connected fracture network in crystalline rocks. This minimum length is determined as a percolation threshold defined by models based on Percolation Theory and fracture density data determined from borehole imaging with well-logging probes. The characteristic length (3.9 meters) once estimated for a testing well was evaluated by monitoring its water head meanwhile nearby wells at different distances were pumped. The water head variation recorded in the testing well was disturbed by interfering effects associated to earth tides and atmospheric pressure, requiring further corrections to isolate effects induced by pumping. The results of these tests validate the percolation limit determined from logging data suggesting a rock mass with very low connectivity. The proposed test can be regarded as simple and easy to apply in many practical situations, for example when evaluating groundwater resources or geotechnical properties in fractured crystalline rocks.

O principal objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar um procedimento de campo para testar o comprimento mínimo que fraturas devem ter para construir uma rede de fluxo em escala de dezenas de metros ao longo de maciços cristalinos. O comprimento mínimo é determinado a partir do limite de percolação, definido por modelos baseados na Teoria da Percolação e a densidade de fraturas no poço, determinada pela perfilagem ótica. Para testar o valor de 3,9 metros que foi encontrado, foram realizados bombeamentos em dois poços próximos enquanto o nível estático era registrado no poço de observação. O método apresenta facilidades em termos de operação e para obter-se o número de fraturas que interceptam o poço, no entanto o registro do nível estático é afetado por fatores externos, como presença de efeitos de maré e variação da pressão atmosférica, e correções são necessárias para permitir identificar a interferência proveniente somente do bombeamento. / The objective of this work is to develop a field procedure to determine a minimum characteristic length forming a connected fracture network in crystalline rocks. This minimum length is determined as a percolation threshold defined by models based on Percolation Theory and fracture density data determined from borehole imaging with well-logging probes. The characteristic length (3.9 meters) once estimated for a testing well was evaluated by monitoring its water head meanwhile nearby wells at different distances were pumped. The water head variation recorded in the testing well was disturbed by interfering effects associated to earth tides and atmospheric pressure, requiring further corrections to isolate effects induced by pumping. The results of these tests validate the percolation limit determined from logging data suggesting a rock mass with very low connectivity. The proposed test can be regarded as simple and easy to apply in many practical situations, for example when evaluating groundwater resources or geotechnical properties in fractured crystalline rocks.

In this thesis, the superconductive and superresistive properties of thin percolating films of lead nanoclusters are presented. The samples were created by depositing clusters from an inert gas aggregation cluster source onto substrates held at either room temperature or 10K. Observations of the characteristic behaviours of the samples were made through R(T ) and V (I) measurements. Several interesting features were observed - smooth and discrete steps in the R(I) curves, hysteresis between increasing and decreasing bias currents, and non-zero resistances at superconducting temperatures. Explanations are proposed in terms of theoretical models of several phenomena - phase slips, phase slip centres and hotspots - which have seen little prior application to percolating systems in literature.

The excellent electrical and mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) provide interesting opportunities to realize new types of strain gauges. However, there are still challenges for the further development of CNT film strain gauges, for instance the lack of design rules, the homogeneity, stability and reproducibility of CNT films. This thesis aims to address these issues from two sides: simulation and experiment. Monte Carlo simulations show that both the sheet resistance and gauge factor of CNT films are determined essentially by the two-dimensional exclude area of CNTs. It was shown, for the first time, that the variation of the CNT film gauge factor follows the percolation scaling law. The sheet resistance and gauge factor both have a power-law divergence when approaching the percolation threshold. The standard deviation of film resistances, however, also increases correspondingly. These findings of simulations provide a general guide to the tailoring of material property of CNT films in strain sensing applications: a compromise should be made between the reproducibility, conductivity and sensitivity of CNT films depending on application purposes. From the experimental side, the processing parameters for the preparation of CNT dispersions were first investigated and optimized. The reproducibility of the film resistance is significantly improved by selecting a suitable sonication time. In strain measurements it was found that for most CNT films the film resistance responses nonlinearly to the applied strain. The dependence of the film resistance on the strain can be roughly divided into two regions with nearly linear behavior respectively. The gauge factor varies with the quality of CNTs and the depositing method. A gauge factor up to 8 was achieved in the high strain region. The nonlinear response behavior was found in simulations when the CNT waviness is properly taken into account. To achieve a high gauge factor and simultaneously retain the high conductivity and reproducibility, good-quality MWCNTs were integrated in polyethylene oxide (PEO). A high gauge factor up to 10 was achieved for the composite film with CNT weight fraction of 2.5%. The resistance and gauge factor can be tuned by changing the MWCNT weight fraction with respect to PEO. A careful comparison of simulation and experiment results show that a good qualitative agreement can be achieved between them in many respects.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:55:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CarlosML.pdf: 1974392 bytes, checksum: 7dc32733a49e5db708c65fe1d883a3ae (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005-11-28 / In the recovering process of oil, rock heterogeneity has a huge impact on how fluids move in the field, defining how much oil can be recovered. In order to study this variability, percolation theory, which describes phenomena involving geometry and connectivity are the bases, is a very useful model. Result of percolation is tridimensional data and have no physical meaning until visualized in form of images or animations. Although a lot of powerful and sophisticated visualization tools have been developed, they focus on generation of planar 2D images. In order to interpret data as they would be in the real world, virtual reality techniques using stereo images could be used. In this work we propose an interactive and helpful tool, named ZSweepVR, based on virtual reality techniques that allows a better comprehension of volumetric data generated by simulation of dynamic percolation. The developed system has the ability to render images using two different techniques: surface rendering and volume rendering. Surface rendering is accomplished by OpenGL directives and volume rendering is accomplished by the Zsweep direct volume rendering engine. In the case of volumetric rendering, we implemented an algorithm to generate stereo images. We also propose enhancements in the original percolation algorithm in order to get a better performance. We applied our developed tools to a mature field database, obtaining satisfactory results. The use of stereoscopic and volumetric images brought valuable contributions for the interpretation and clustering formation analysis in percolation, what certainly could lead to better decisions about the exploration and recovery process in oil fields / No processo da recupera??o do petr?leo, a heterogeneidade das rochas exerce um impacto enorme na forma como os l?quidos se movem no reservat?rio, definindo quanto petr?leo pode ser recuperado. A fim de estudar esta variabilidade, a teoria da percola??o, que descreve fen?menos envolvendo geometria e conectividade ? um modelo muito ?til. Os resultados da simula??o de percola??o s?o de car?ter tridimensional e n?o t?m nenhum significado f?sico at? que sejam visualizados em imagens ou anima??es. Embora ferramentas poderosas e sofisticadas de visualiza??o tenham sido desenvolvidas, estas transformam grandes volumes de dados em imagens 2D. A fim de interpretarmos os dados como eles aparecem no mundo real, t?cnicas de realidade virtual baseadas principalmente em estereoscopia podem ser usadas. Neste trabalho, propomos uma ferramenta interativa, denominada ZSweepVR, baseada em t?cnicas de realidade virtual, que permite uma melhor compreens?o dos dados volum?tricos gerados por simula??es de percola??o din?mica. O sistema desenvolvido tem a capacidade de renderizar imagens utilizando duas t?cnicas diferentes: renderiza??o de superf?cie e renderiza??o de volumes. A renderiza??o de superf?cie ? realizada utilizando diretivas OpenGL, enquanto que a renderiza??o volum?trica ? realizada pelo algoritmo de renderiza??o volum?trica direta ZSweep. No caso da renderiza??o volum?trica, implementamos algoritmo para gerar imagens est?reo. N?s tamb?m propomos melhorias no algoritmo original de percola??o din?mica visando melhorar sua efici?ncia. Aplicamos as ferramentas desenvolvidas a dados de campos maduros, obtendo resultados satisfat?rios. O uso de imagens estereosc?picas e volum?tricas trouxe contribui??es valiosas para a interpreta??o e analise da forma??o dos aglomerados na percola??o, o que certamente pode levar a decis?es melhores sobre a explora??o e recupera??o de petr?leo

Electronic devices made of organic molecules are starting to show their transfomative power in various fields of application today. However, as with most technologies, progress is eventually bounded by how well the inner workings of the components are understood. For electronic devices, as the name suggests, this mostly concerns the behavior of electrons or, more generally, electric charge carriers. To understand and predict device properties, knowledge of the mechanisms that govern the fate of charge carriers is indispensable. In an organic material, those mechanisms are closely related to material properties on a molecular level. Thus, the micro- and macroscale are linked in a complex manner and many questions about these links are still open. This work aims to advance the understanding of three important aspects of the field: the time-evolution of charge carrier states, the mechanism of molecular doping and the efficiency of organic solar cells and photodetectors. All three are strongly affected by a common property of organic materials: disorder. Specifcally, we extend the theoretical framework of describing the time-dependence of charge carrier motion in disordered semiconductors and use it to predict the time-dependence of recombination in organic solar cells. We find that, just as transport, recombination slows down with time, and establish a quantitative method of extracting material characteristics from the measured time-dependence of recombination. To analyze the influence of molecular doping on charge transport, we develop a computational method based on percolation theory. We show that for organic semiconductors, the popular transport energy model can not be used to predict the thermoelectric properties. The latter are important since they are often used to measure the amount of free charges introduced by doping. We are able to accurately model the activation energy of conductivity and study the important length scales and the influence of molecular parameters. Finally, we investigate the consequences of disorder on the performance of solar cells and photodetectors by studying the timescale and efficiency of the separation of photo-generated positive and negative charges. We find that, depending on the conditions, separation can in fact be either enhanced or hindered by disorder effects.

The excellent electrical and mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) provide interesting opportunities to realize new types of strain gauges. However, there are still challenges for the further development of CNT film strain gauges, for instance the lack of design rules, the homogeneity, stability and reproducibility of CNT films. This thesis aims to address these issues from two sides: simulation and experiment. Monte Carlo simulations show that both the sheet resistance and gauge factor of CNT films are determined essentially by the two-dimensional exclude area of CNTs. It was shown, for the first time, that the variation of the CNT film gauge factor follows the percolation scaling law. The sheet resistance and gauge factor both have a power-law divergence when approaching the percolation threshold. The standard deviation of film resistances, however, also increases correspondingly. These findings of simulations provide a general guide to the tailoring of material property of CNT films in strain sensing applications: a compromise should be made between the reproducibility, conductivity and sensitivity of CNT films depending on application purposes. From the experimental side, the processing parameters for the preparation of CNT dispersions were first investigated and optimized. The reproducibility of the film resistance is significantly improved by selecting a suitable sonication time. In strain measurements it was found that for most CNT films the film resistance responses nonlinearly to the applied strain. The dependence of the film resistance on the strain can be roughly divided into two regions with nearly linear behavior respectively. The gauge factor varies with the quality of CNTs and the depositing method. A gauge factor up to 8 was achieved in the high strain region. The nonlinear response behavior was found in simulations when the CNT waviness is properly taken into account. To achieve a high gauge factor and simultaneously retain the high conductivity and reproducibility, good-quality MWCNTs were integrated in polyethylene oxide (PEO). A high gauge factor up to 10 was achieved for the composite film with CNT weight fraction of 2.5%. The resistance and gauge factor can be tuned by changing the MWCNT weight fraction with respect to PEO. A careful comparison of simulation and experiment results show that a good qualitative agreement can be achieved between them in many respects.

Miniaturization has become a driving force in different areas of technology including microelectronics, sensoric- and bio-technologies and in fundamental science. Because of the well-known limitations of conventional lithographic methods, newly emerging bottom-up approach, utilizing self-assembly of various nanoobjects including single polymer molecules and carbon nanotubes constitutes a very promising alternative for fabrication of ultimately small devices. Carbon nanotubes are attractive materials for nanotechnology and hold much promise to revolutionize fundamental science in a investigation of phenomena, associated with the nanometer–sized objects.It was found in this work that grafted chains of poly(2-vinylpyridine) form a shell covering the carbon nanotubes that makes them dispersible in organic solvents and in acidic water (CNTs-g-P2VP).The positively charged poly(2-vinylpyridine) shell is responsible for the selective deposition of carbon nanotubes onto oppositely charged surfaces. It was established that the deposition CNTs-g-P2VP from aqueous dispersions at low pH is an effective method to prepare ultra-thin films with a tunable density of carbon nanotubes.It was shown that poly(2-vinylpyridine) grafted to carbon nanotubes is a universal support for the immobilization of various nanoclusters at the carbon nanotube's surface. Prussian Blue nanoparticles were selectively attached to the surface of CNTs-g-P2VP.Conducting polymer nanowires are another very promising kind of nanomaterials that could be also suitable for applications in nanodevices and nanosensors. In this work was developed a simple method to control the conformation and orientation of single adsorbed polyelectrolyte molecules by co-deposition with octylamine. A simple chemical route to conductive polypyrrole nanowires by the grafting of polypyrrole from molecules of polystyrensulfonic acid was developed. The dc conductivity of individual polypyrrole nanowires approaches the conductivity of polypyrole in bulk.The conductivity can be described using variable-range hopping model.

Miniaturization has become a driving force in different areas of technology including microelectronics, sensoric- and bio-technologies and in fundamental science. Because of the well-known limitations of conventional lithographic methods, newly emerging bottom-up approach, utilizing self-assembly of various nanoobjects including single polymer molecules and carbon nanotubes constitutes a very promising alternative for fabrication of ultimately small devices. Carbon nanotubes are attractive materials for nanotechnology and hold much promise to revolutionize fundamental science in a investigation of phenomena, associated with the nanometer–sized objects.It was found in this work that grafted chains of poly(2-vinylpyridine) form a shell covering the carbon nanotubes that makes them dispersible in organic solvents and in acidic water (CNTs-g-P2VP).The positively charged poly(2-vinylpyridine) shell is responsible for the selective deposition of carbon nanotubes onto oppositely charged surfaces. It was established that the deposition CNTs-g-P2VP from aqueous dispersions at low pH is an effective method to prepare ultra-thin films with a tunable density of carbon nanotubes.It was shown that poly(2-vinylpyridine) grafted to carbon nanotubes is a universal support for the immobilization of various nanoclusters at the carbon nanotube's surface. Prussian Blue nanoparticles were selectively attached to the surface of CNTs-g-P2VP.Conducting polymer nanowires are another very promising kind of nanomaterials that could be also suitable for applications in nanodevices and nanosensors. In this work was developed a simple method to control the conformation and orientation of single adsorbed polyelectrolyte molecules by co-deposition with octylamine. A simple chemical route to conductive polypyrrole nanowires by the grafting of polypyrrole from molecules of polystyrensulfonic acid was developed. The dc conductivity of individual polypyrrole nanowires approaches the conductivity of polypyrole in bulk.The conductivity can be described using variable-range hopping model.

No description available.