<p> Detecting leaks is always a priority in the oil and gas industry and plays a major concern to human safety. The time required to fix any leak has a direct relationship in determining the damages caused to the environment, industry, and most importantly, the number of lives lost caused by catastrophic pipe failures. Detecting leak size and location in pipelines with higher accuracy presents major challenges to operators. This research work presents an innovative solution to locate a leak location inside a pipeline with higher precision. The solution is based on generating a 3D model that establishes a relationship between leak noise and its associated location and size. In order to generate the 3D model, an experiment study was first conducted where a flow loop having a leak, integrated with an acoustic detection system, was built to collect data about the effect of leak size, flowrate, pipeline material, and length on the noise generated. Later, a numerical study used the experimental results to initiate a simulation that aimed at finding how the leak noise propagates from the leak location. Finally, the experimental and numerical results were combined into a 3D model equation that solves for the leak location based on the leak noise and size.</p><p>

<p> The quest for affordable energy continues to drive the need for new technology and push the limits of current practice. In the offshore arena of oil and gas exploration, massive drillships are used to penetrate reservoirs several thousand feet below the surface. The dynamic loading in the landing and casing string induced by an ocean environment is studied and a simplified model of heave in the string is developed in this thesis. An overview of the landing operations for intermediate casing strings and factors driving increasing lengths and weights of casing are presented. The available wave energy spectra for simulating the ocean wave environment and the ship&rsquo;s response to such an environment (particularly in heave) are discussed. A literature review of previous models of dynamic loading in tubulars aboard offshore vessels is presented. The development and validation of a simplified model based on two real-world case studies are also presented. Contrary to prior assumptions, for models with 10 to 50 lumped masses, an increase in the number of masses significantly decreases the dynamic loads compared to using fewer masses. A comparison of the model results to the case studies suggests that vessel heave from the ocean environment induced only a portion of the dynamic loads observed. The dynamic loads observed in the case studies are on the order of only 1% of static string weight. Operations in extreme waves are also simulated, and the maximum dynamic loads predicted are less than 5% of static string weight.</p><p>

<p> Gas hydrates pose economic and environmental risks to the oil and gas industry when plug formation occurs in pipelines. A novel approach using interfacial rheology was applied to understand cyclopentane clathrate hydrate formation in the presence of nonionic surfactant to achieve hydrate inhibition at low percent weight compared to thermodynamic inhibitors. The hydrate-inhibiting performance of low (&lt;CMC), medium (&ap;CMC), and high (>CMC) concentrations of Span 20, Span 80, Pluronic L31, and Tween 65 at 2 &deg;C on a manually nucleated 2 &mu;L droplet showed a morphological shift in crystallization from planar shell growth to conical growth for growth rates below 0.20 mm²/min. Monitoring the internal pressure of a droplet undergoing planar hydrate crystallization provided a strong correlation (up to <i>R</i> = &ndash;0.989) of decreasing interfacial tension to the shrinking area of the water-cyclopentane interface. Results from the high-concentration batch of surfactants indicated that while initial hydrate growth is largely suppressed, the final stage of droplet conversion becomes rapid. This effect was observed following droplet collapse from the combination of large conical growths and low interfacial tensions. The low-concentration batch of surfactants saw rapid growth rates that diminished once hydrate shell coverage was completed. The most effective surfactant was the high-concentration Tween 65 (0.15 g/100mL), which slowed hydrate growth to 0.068 mm²/min, nearly an order of magnitude slower than that found for pure water at 0:590 mm²/min. High molecular weight (1845 g/mol) and HLB (10.5) close to 10 contribute to a large energy of desorption at an interface and are believed to be the sources of Tween 65's hydrate-inhibiting properties. </p><p>

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Oklahoma, 2005 / Title from title screen (viewed on Dec. 10, 2007). Title from document title page. Includes bibliographical references. Available in PDF format via the World Wide Web.

With the recent increase in natural gas production, the demand for college educated petroleum engineers has increased. A greater number of high school graduates are now applying to petroleum engineering degree programs, however, the admission requirements to petroleum engineering schools are becoming increasingly stricter. Secondary educators have a greater challenge to better prepare students to compete for these positions and there is a need to introduce petrophysical concepts to students in the most effective manner. One petrophysical concept is porosity of rock. In this report, background information on rock formation and porosity of rocks is provided along with a brief summary on how 3D printers operate. But primarily, a lesson plan is presented to teach rock porosity in a novel way using 3D printed enlargements of porous rock from x-ray microtomography images of packed sand. The hypothesis was that students will gain greater understanding of petrophysical properties when using 3D prints of rocks. The porosity lesson with a lab using the 3D printed rocks was taught to a treatment group of 20 upcoming 6th graders. A porosity lesson without the use of 3D printed rocks was didactically taught to a control group of 14 additional 6th graders. Because of time limitations, not all of the students from the treatment group were able to experience all elements of the lab. However, every student in the control group received instruction and practice on how to calculate porosity of rock. The treatment group showed greater gain in learning the abstract concept about porosity that rocks of similar structure will have equivalent porosity regardless of grain size. However, the control group indicated greater gain learning the fundamental concepts of the definition of porosity, how to calculate porosity, and at being able to transfer their knowledge of percent porosity to a general problem about percentages. Despite the limited sample size and other sources of error, using 3D printed enlargements of rock was found to enhance students’ abilities to visualize abstract petrophysical properties. However, benefits from didactic instruction of fundamental concepts of petrophysical properties were found as well. / text

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Increasing global energy demand as well as air quality concerns have in recent years led to the search for alternative clean fuels to replace fossil fuels. One such alternative is the blending of petrol (gasoline) with ethanol, which has numerous advantages such as ethanol’s ability to act as oxygenate thus reducing the carbon monoxide emissions from the exhaust of internal combustion engines of vehicles. However, the hygroscopic nature of ethanol is a major concern in obtaining a perfectly homogenized petrol-ethanol fuel. This problem has led to the study of ways of homogenizing the petrol-ethanol mixtures. Therefore, this thesis aimed at enhancing the homogenization of petrol-ethanol mixture. Ethanol concentration in ethanol-water mixture plays a key role in enhancing the homogenization of the fuel, thus the bioethanol employed in this study was dehydrated with silica gel using ultrasonication-enhanced adsorption. Afterwards, the dehydrated ethanol was used in studying the homogenization of the fuel blend. Water removal from the bioethanol using ultrasonication-enhanced adsorption shows a 28% increase when compared to the water removal using magnetic-stirring-enhanced adsorption, During ultrasonication-enhanced adsorption, the estimated adsorption enthalpy was – 1 592.82 J/mol (exothermic) and the entropy was -5.44 J/ K mol, indicating a non-ordered loading of water molecules in the adsorption site. In addition, a modified pseudo second order kinetic model given by was proposed for the ultrasonication-enhanced adsorption process. Effect of temperature during ultrasonication-enhanced adsorption was found to be directly proportional to the amplitude and the pulse rate. However, increase in the amplitudes at lower pulse rates resulted in better cavitation, and hence better adsorption. Furthermore, during phase behavior of ethanol-petrol blend, volume fractions of ethanol and petrol were studied with respect to t the depth within the storage container to confirm homogenization of the blend and time of storage. The binodal curve of the ternary diagram shows an increase of homogeneous region indicating an improved interaction between water and petrol. Therefore, the interesting results regarding the homogenization of the fuel blends resulted from using ultrasonication-enhanced blending were very promising, and could be a platform upon which further research efforts could be built on. The concentration distribution in the reactor showed proof of cavitation formation since in both directions, the variation of concentration with both time and distance was found to be oscillatory. On comparing the profiles in both directions, the concentration gradient, diffusion flux, and energy and diffusion rates were found to be higher in the vertical direction compared to the horizontal direction. It was therefore concluded that ultrasonication creates cavitation in the mixture which enhances mass transfer and mixing of ethanol and petrol. The horizontal direction was found to be the diffusion rate limiting step which proposed that the blender should have a larger height to diameter ratio. It is however recommended that further studies be done on the rate-limiting step so as to have actual dimensions of the reactor. Testing of the blended fuel in internal combustion engine showed an optimal performance of this fuel at 60 % volume ethanol content with higher fuel power. The results of fuel consumption and emissions (such as CO2 and CO) trends confirm various reports in literature on the performance of ethanol/petrol blended fuel.

This dissertation aims to propose a new and practical method to obtain equivalent fracture network permeability (EFNP), which represents and replaces all the existing fractures located in each grid block for the reservoir simulation of naturally fractured reservoirs. To achieve this, first the relationship between different geometrical properties of fracture networks and their EFNP was studied. A MATLAB program was written to generate many different realizations of 2-D fracture networks by changing fracture length, density and also orientation. Next, twelve different 2-D fractal-statistical properties of the generated fracture networks were measured to quantify different characteristics. In addition to the 2-D fractal-statistical properties, readily available 1-D and 3-D data were also measured for the models showing variations of fracture properties in the Z-direction. The actual EFNP of each fracture network was then measured using commercial software called FRACA. The relationship between the 1-, 2- and 3-D data and EFNP was analyzed using multivariable regression analysis and based on these analyses, correlations with different number of variables were proposed to estimate EFNP. To improve the accuracy of the predicted EFNP values, an artificial neural network with the back-propagation algorithm was also developed. Then, using the experimental design technique, the impact of each fracture network parameter including fracture length, density, orientation and conductivity on EFNP was investigated. On the basis of the results and the analyses, the conditions to obtain EFNP for practical applications based on the available data (1-D well, 2-D outcrop, and 3-D welltest) were presented. This methodology was repeated for natural fracture patterns obtained mostly from the outcrops of different geothermal reservoirs. The validity of the equations was also tested against the real welltest data obtained from the fields. Finally, the concept of the percolation theory was used to determine whether each fracture network in the domain is percolating (permeable) and to quantify the fracture connectivity, which controls the EFNP. For each randomly generated fracture network, the relationship between the combined fractal-percolation properties and the EFNP values was investigated and correlations for predicting the EFNP were proposed. As before, the results were validated with a new set of fracture networks. / Petroleum Engineering

Gas viscosity is one of the gas properties that is vital to petroleum engineering. Its role in the oil and gas production and transportation is indicated by its contribution in the resistance to the flow of a fluid both in porous media and pipes. Although viscosity of some pure components such as methane, ethane, propane, butane, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and binary mixtures of these components at low-intermediate pressure and temperature had been studied intensively and been understood thoroughly, very few investigations were performed on viscosity of naturally occurring gases, especially gas condensates at low-intermediate pressure and temperature, even fewer lab data were published. No gas viscosity data at high pressures and high temperatures (HPHT) is available. Therefore this gap in the oil industry still needs to be filled. Gas viscosity at HPHT becomes crucial to modern oil industry as exploration and production move to deep formation or deep water where HPHT is not uncommon. Therefore, any hydrocarbon encountered there is more gas than oil due to the chemical reaction causing oil to transfer to gas as temperature increases. We need gas viscosity to optimize production rate for production system, estimate reserves, model gas injection, design drilling fluid, and monitor gas movement in well control. Current gas viscosity correlations are derived using measured data at low-moderate pressures and temperatures, and then extrapolated to HPHT. No measured gas viscosities at HPHT are available so far. The validities of these correlations for gas viscosity at HPHT are doubted due to lack of experimental data. In this study, four types of viscometers are evaluated and their advantages and disadvantages are listed. The falling body viscometer is used to measure gas viscosity at a pressure range of 3000 to 25000 psi and a temperature range of 100 to 415 oF. Nitrogen viscosity is measured to take into account of the fact that the concentration of nonhydrocarbons increase drastically in HPHT reservoir. More nitrogen is found as we move to HPHT reservoirs. High concentration nitrogen in natural gas affects not only the heat value of natural gas, but also gas viscosity which is critical to petroleum engineering. Nitrogen is also one of common inject gases in gas injection projects, thus an accurate estimation of its viscosity is vital to analyze reservoir performance. Then methane viscosity is measured to honor that hydrocarbon in HPHT which is almost pure methane. From our experiments, we found that while the Lee-Gonzalez-Eakin correlation estimates gas viscosity at a low-moderate pressure and temperature accurately, it cannot give good match of gas viscosity at HPHT. Apparently, current correlations need to be modified to predict gas viscosity at HPHT. New correlations constructed for HPHT conditions based on our experiment data give more confidence on gas viscosity.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 214-220). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-146). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.