Maintaining proper waterflood conformance is a critical component of waterflood management. Most methods used to control waterflood conformance have proven to be only marginally effective. A unique technique has been developed for creating a durable reservoir flow restriction that diverts injected water into unswept reservoir sections. Placement of the restriction is based in the location of the thermal front between the injector and producers. A thermally activated nano-sized particle system-BRIGHTWATER - was developed that gives us this restriction. A sector model of ACG field has been developed to study applicability of BRIGHTWATER injection in ACG field. A decrease in oil production and increase in water production were seen in wells after production started. The water cuts were high for South flank wells. From the simulation it was seen that there were unswept zones. So this new technology was decided to apply in this thesis work. Several runs were conducted to study effect of BRIGHTWATER concentration, crosslinker concentration, injection rate and pressure, injection temperature, injection times and injection well locations. Results are given in tables and figures and briefly discussed. Also the best and the worst cases are chosen from the results, and analyzed in detail. Finally, economical analysis is given. It has been observed that injecting the polymer in slug form is better than continuous injection. Injecting polymer in early times may give better results. Injection of polymer with 3 slug sizes between 6 month injection periods seems more beneficial. According to the simulation results optimum polymer injection temperature was 780 F. Good results were obtained when polymer was injected at 65000, 75000 and 85000 bbl/day injection rates. Oil recoveries obtained during simulation were in the range of 1.4% to 3.8 % which gives additional recovery of 11 to 31 MMSTB of oil. BRIGHTWATER injection has been found to be applicable to ACG field.

No description available.

Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) is one of the most important polymers in use today for packaging due to its outstanding properties. The usage of PET has grown at the highest rate compared with other plastic packaging over the last 20 years, and it is anticipated that the increase in global demand will be around 6% in the 2010-2015 period. The rheological behaviour, thermal properties, tensile modulus, permeability properties and degradation phenomena of PET/clay nanocomposites have been investigated in this project. An overall, important finding is that incorporation of nanoclays in PET gives rise to improvements in several key process and product parameters together - processability/ reduced process energy, thermal properties, barrier properties and stiffness. The PET pellets have been compounded with carefully selected nanoclays (Somasif MAE, Somasif MTE and Cloisite 25A) via twin screw extrusion to produce PET/clay nanocomposites at various weight fractions of nanoclay (1, 3, 5, 20 wt.%). The nanoclays vary in the aspect ratio of the platelets, surfactant and/or gallery spacing so different effect are to be expected. The materials were carefully prepared prior to processing in terms of sufficient drying and re-crystallisation of the amorphous pellets as well as the use of dual motor feeders for feeding the materials to the extruder. The rheological properties of PET melts have been found to be enhanced by decreasing the viscosity of the PET i.e. increasing the 'flowability' of the PET melt during the injection or/and extrusion processes. The apparent shear viscosity of PETNCs is show to be significantly lower than un-filled PET at high shear rates. The viscosity exhibits shear thinning behaviour which can be explained by two mechanisms which can occur simultaneously. The first mechanism proposed is that some polymer has entangled and few oriented molecular chain at rest and when applying high shear rates, the level of entanglements is reduced and the molecular chains tend to orient with the flow direction. The other mechanism is that the nanoparticles align with the flow direction at high shear rates. At low shear rate, the magnitudes of the shear viscosity are dependent on the nanoclay concentrations and processing shear rate. Increasing nanoclay concentration leads to increases in shear viscosity. The viscosity was observed to deviate from Newtonian behaviour and exhibited shear thinning at a 3 wt.% concentration. It is possible that the formation of aggregates of clay is responsible for an increase in shear viscosity. Reducing the shear viscosity has positive benefits for downstream manufacturers by reducing power consumption. It was observed that all ii three nanoclays used in this project act as nucleation agents for crystallisation by increasing the crystallisation temperature from the melt and decreasing the crystallisation temperature from the solid and increasing the crystallisation rate, while retaining the melt temperature and glass transition temperatures without significant change. This enhancement in the thermal properties leads to a decrease in the required cycle time for manufacturing processes thus potentially reducing operational costs and increasing production output. It was observed that the nanoclay significantly enhanced the barrier properties of the PET film by up to 50% this potentially allows new PET packaging applications for longer shelf lives or high gas pressures. PET final products require high stiffness whether for carbonated soft drinks or rough handling during distribution. The PET/Somasif nanocomposites exhibit an increase in the tensile modulus of PET nanocomposite films by up to 125% which can be attributed to many reasons including the good dispersion of these clays within the PET matrix as shown by TEM images as well as the good compatibility between the PET chains and the Somasif clays. The tensile test results for the PET/clay nanocomposites micro-moulded samples shows that the injection speed is crucial factor affecting the mechanical properties of polymer injection moulded products.

Submitted by Johnny Rodrigues (johnnyrodrigues@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-08-10T18:01:20Z No. of bitstreams: 1 KEYTT AMARAL DA SILVA - DISSERTAÇÃO PPGMAT 2015..pdf: 1966719 bytes, checksum: d55ff8700252c9540c54209c808e22a3 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-10T18:01:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 KEYTT AMARAL DA SILVA - DISSERTAÇÃO PPGMAT 2015..pdf: 1966719 bytes, checksum: d55ff8700252c9540c54209c808e22a3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08 / Neste trabalho apresentamos a construção detalhada da solução do Problema de Riemann associado à um sistema de leis de conservação de um problema não estritamente hiperbólico, proveniente da modelagem matemática de um escoamento unidimensional bifásico num meio poroso em que as fases são óleo e água com polímero dissolvido, para dados iniciais arbitrários no espaço de estados. A construção da solução do sistema é baseada na solução da equação de Buckley−Leverett para cada nível de concentração constante de polímero e nas curvas integrais de uma campo característico linearmente degenerado que dá origem as chamadas ondas de contato. / We present the detailed construction of the Riemann problem solution associate to a system of conservation laws of a non−strictly hyperbolic problem, from mathematical modeling of a one-dimensional two-flow in a porous medium filled by oil and water with dissolved polymer, for arbitrary initial data in the state space. The construction of the system solution is based on the solution Buckley−Leverett equation for each level constant polymer concentration and on the integral curves of a linearly degenerated field characteristic that gives rise to the so-called contact waves.

O processo de moldagem por injeção de peças de paredes finas apresenta diferenças significativas em relação a processos convencionais de moldagem por injeção de termoplásticos. Processos de paredes finas são caracterizados pelo preenchimento de cavidades com espessuras inferiores a 1 mm utilizando velocidades de preenchimento elevadas. Estes dois fatores afetam o desenvolvimento de tensões induzidas pelo escoamento durante o preenchimento da cavidade, sendo que não foram encontrados na literatura estudos de determinação de tensões induzidas pelo escoamento em cavidades de paredes finas. Neste trabalho são apresentados resultados de determinação de tensões induzidas pelo escoamento em cavidades de paredes finas em comparação com resultados de simulação com cavidades características de processos convencionais. Para o cálculo das tensões induzidas pelo escoamento foi utilizado o modelo incompressível de Leonov. Para isso foi desenvolvida uma metodologia numérica para tratar problemas não isotérmicos utilizando o pacote CFD OpenFOAM. Foi utilizada a abordagem não acoplada, ou seja, o comportamento viscoelástico não é considerado na obtenção dos campos de velocidade, pressão e temperatura. Esta metodologia foi utilizada na simulação do preenchimento de cavidades bidimensionais. Os resultados indicaram que as tensões são influenciadas fortemente pela espessura da cavidade enquanto a velocidade de escoamento causou pequena variação das tensões induzidas pelo escoamento. Este trabalho mostrou que as tensões induzidas pelo escoamento não podem ser desconsideradas na produção de peças moldadas por injeção pelo processo de paredes finas. / Thin wall injection molding process of thermoplastics has significant differences compared to conventional injection molding process. Thin wall processes are characterized by cavities thinner than 1 mm and very high injection velocities. Although these two factors are expected to increase the flow induced stresses development during cavities filling, no previous study on this subject has been found in literature. In the present work, flow induced stresses under thin wall injection molding conditions are calculated using a viscoelastic model and compared to the results obtained under conventional injection conditions. In order to do this, a numerical methodology, based on the solver viscoelasticInterFoam, was developed in the OpenFOAM package to deal with the non-isothermal flow occurring during the mold filling stage. A non-coupled approach was used to calculate the stress field, i.e., the viscoelastic behavior was not considered in the determination of velocity, pressure and temperature fields. This methodology was used in the analysis of the filling stage of two-dimensional cavities. The results indicated that the cavity thickness has more influence on the flow induced stresses than the injection velocity. The obtained results also indicate that the flow induced stresses cannot be neglected in thin wall injection molding processes.

O processo de moldagem por injeção de peças de paredes finas apresenta diferenças significativas em relação a processos convencionais de moldagem por injeção de termoplásticos. Processos de paredes finas são caracterizados pelo preenchimento de cavidades com espessuras inferiores a 1 mm utilizando velocidades de preenchimento elevadas. Estes dois fatores afetam o desenvolvimento de tensões induzidas pelo escoamento durante o preenchimento da cavidade, sendo que não foram encontrados na literatura estudos de determinação de tensões induzidas pelo escoamento em cavidades de paredes finas. Neste trabalho são apresentados resultados de determinação de tensões induzidas pelo escoamento em cavidades de paredes finas em comparação com resultados de simulação com cavidades características de processos convencionais. Para o cálculo das tensões induzidas pelo escoamento foi utilizado o modelo incompressível de Leonov. Para isso foi desenvolvida uma metodologia numérica para tratar problemas não isotérmicos utilizando o pacote CFD OpenFOAM. Foi utilizada a abordagem não acoplada, ou seja, o comportamento viscoelástico não é considerado na obtenção dos campos de velocidade, pressão e temperatura. Esta metodologia foi utilizada na simulação do preenchimento de cavidades bidimensionais. Os resultados indicaram que as tensões são influenciadas fortemente pela espessura da cavidade enquanto a velocidade de escoamento causou pequena variação das tensões induzidas pelo escoamento. Este trabalho mostrou que as tensões induzidas pelo escoamento não podem ser desconsideradas na produção de peças moldadas por injeção pelo processo de paredes finas. / Thin wall injection molding process of thermoplastics has significant differences compared to conventional injection molding process. Thin wall processes are characterized by cavities thinner than 1 mm and very high injection velocities. Although these two factors are expected to increase the flow induced stresses development during cavities filling, no previous study on this subject has been found in literature. In the present work, flow induced stresses under thin wall injection molding conditions are calculated using a viscoelastic model and compared to the results obtained under conventional injection conditions. In order to do this, a numerical methodology, based on the solver viscoelasticInterFoam, was developed in the OpenFOAM package to deal with the non-isothermal flow occurring during the mold filling stage. A non-coupled approach was used to calculate the stress field, i.e., the viscoelastic behavior was not considered in the determination of velocity, pressure and temperature fields. This methodology was used in the analysis of the filling stage of two-dimensional cavities. The results indicated that the cavity thickness has more influence on the flow induced stresses than the injection velocity. The obtained results also indicate that the flow induced stresses cannot be neglected in thin wall injection molding processes.

O processo de moldagem por injeção de peças de paredes finas apresenta diferenças significativas em relação a processos convencionais de moldagem por injeção de termoplásticos. Processos de paredes finas são caracterizados pelo preenchimento de cavidades com espessuras inferiores a 1 mm utilizando velocidades de preenchimento elevadas. Estes dois fatores afetam o desenvolvimento de tensões induzidas pelo escoamento durante o preenchimento da cavidade, sendo que não foram encontrados na literatura estudos de determinação de tensões induzidas pelo escoamento em cavidades de paredes finas. Neste trabalho são apresentados resultados de determinação de tensões induzidas pelo escoamento em cavidades de paredes finas em comparação com resultados de simulação com cavidades características de processos convencionais. Para o cálculo das tensões induzidas pelo escoamento foi utilizado o modelo incompressível de Leonov. Para isso foi desenvolvida uma metodologia numérica para tratar problemas não isotérmicos utilizando o pacote CFD OpenFOAM. Foi utilizada a abordagem não acoplada, ou seja, o comportamento viscoelástico não é considerado na obtenção dos campos de velocidade, pressão e temperatura. Esta metodologia foi utilizada na simulação do preenchimento de cavidades bidimensionais. Os resultados indicaram que as tensões são influenciadas fortemente pela espessura da cavidade enquanto a velocidade de escoamento causou pequena variação das tensões induzidas pelo escoamento. Este trabalho mostrou que as tensões induzidas pelo escoamento não podem ser desconsideradas na produção de peças moldadas por injeção pelo processo de paredes finas. / Thin wall injection molding process of thermoplastics has significant differences compared to conventional injection molding process. Thin wall processes are characterized by cavities thinner than 1 mm and very high injection velocities. Although these two factors are expected to increase the flow induced stresses development during cavities filling, no previous study on this subject has been found in literature. In the present work, flow induced stresses under thin wall injection molding conditions are calculated using a viscoelastic model and compared to the results obtained under conventional injection conditions. In order to do this, a numerical methodology, based on the solver viscoelasticInterFoam, was developed in the OpenFOAM package to deal with the non-isothermal flow occurring during the mold filling stage. A non-coupled approach was used to calculate the stress field, i.e., the viscoelastic behavior was not considered in the determination of velocity, pressure and temperature fields. This methodology was used in the analysis of the filling stage of two-dimensional cavities. The results indicated that the cavity thickness has more influence on the flow induced stresses than the injection velocity. The obtained results also indicate that the flow induced stresses cannot be neglected in thin wall injection molding processes.

This master’s thesis deals with influence of gas content in structure of polymer materials to mechanical properties. Test specimens were prepared by MuCell technology from polyphthalamide reinforced by 50 % of glass fiber content. The theorethical part of this thesis is focused on polymer materials with attention to polyamides and injection moulding technology. In the experimental part, the dependence between the characteristics obtained from the tensile test and the Charpy impact test on the amount of gas in the polymer is examined.

Diplomová práce vznikla ve spolupráci s průmyslovým partnerem, který vyrábí elektrické komponenty pro automobilový průmysl. Tato firma se potýká s problémy často se porušujících jader v některých jejich formách na vstřikování plastů, vyrábějících převážně housingy pro konektory. Firma disponuje licencemi na komerční software pro simulaci injekčního vstřikování Moldflow a Moldex3D a také pro simulaci metodou konečných prvků Ansys. Nejprve jsou shrnuty teoretické poznatky ohledně injekčního vstřikování a jeho simulace, řešení problémů interakce těles s tekutinou a únavy materiálu. Poté je popsán proces stanovení únavové životnosti jádra formy s využitím výše zmíněného softwaru. Proces je vysvětlen na příkladu konkrétní formy ve výrobě této firmy. Je zvolen takový přístup vyhodnocení únavy, který nejvíce odpovídá současné životnosti jader, a ten je pak použit pro analýzu vlivu změny geometrie jádra a parametrů vstřikování. Změny ostatních parametrů, které simulace neumožňuje zahrnout, jsou rovněž navrhnuty a pokud možno odůvodněny jinými způsoby. Jedno z doporučení je přidání zaoblení na obě jádra, což by mohlo prodloužit životnost toho problematičtějšího z nich z 30 dnů na více než 320 dnů. Toto by mohlo znamenat úspory až 10 600 EUR ročně. Další doporučení je změnit způsob obrábění jader a také přidat jejich tepelné zpracování.

Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) is one of the most important polymers in use today for packaging due to its outstanding properties. The usage of PET has grown at the highest rate compared with other plastic packaging over the last 20 years, and it is anticipated that the increase in global demand will be around 6% in the 2010 ¿ 2015 period. The rheological behaviour, thermal properties, tensile modulus, permeability properties and degradation phenomena of PET/clay nanocomposites have been investigated in this project. An overall, important finding is that incorporation of nanoclays in PET gives rise to improvements in several key process and product parameters together ¿ processability/ reduced process energy, thermal properties, barrier properties and stiffness. The PET pellets have been compounded with carefully selected nanoclays (Somasif MAE, Somasif MTE and Cloisite 25A) via twin screw extrusion to produce PET/clay nanocomposites at various weight fractions of nanoclay (1, 3, 5, 20 wt.%). The nanoclays vary in the aspect ratio of the platelets, surfactant and/or gallery spacing so different effect are to be expected. The materials were carefully prepared prior to processing in terms of sufficient drying and re-crystallisation of the amorphous pellets as well as the use of dual motor feeders for feeding the materials to the extruder. The rheological properties of PET melts have been found to be enhanced by decreasing the viscosity of the PET i.e. increasing the ¿flowability¿ of the PET melt during the injection or/and extrusion processes. The apparent shear viscosity of PETNCs is show to be significantly lower than un-filled PET at high shear rates. The viscosity exhibits shear thinning behaviour which can be explained by two mechanisms which can occur simultaneously. The first mechanism proposed is that some polymer has entangled and few oriented molecular chain at rest and when applying high shear rates, the level of entanglements is reduced and the molecular chains tend to orient with the flow direction. The other mechanism is that the nanoparticles align with the flow direction at high shear rates. At low shear rate, the magnitudes of the shear viscosity are dependent on the nanoclay concentrations and processing shear rate. Increasing nanoclay concentration leads to increases in shear viscosity. The viscosity was observed to deviate from Newtonian behaviour and exhibited shear thinning at a 3 wt.% concentration. It is possible that the formation of aggregates of clay is responsible for an increase in shear viscosity. Reducing the shear viscosity has positive benefits for downstream manufacturers by reducing power consumption. It was observed that all ii three nanoclays used in this project act as nucleation agents for crystallisation by increasing the crystallisation temperature from the melt and decreasing the crystallisation temperature from the solid and increasing the crystallisation rate, while retaining the melt temperature and glass transition temperatures without significant change. This enhancement in the thermal properties leads to a decrease in the required cycle time for manufacturing processes thus potentially reducing operational costs and increasing production output. It was observed that the nanoclay significantly enhanced the barrier properties of the PET film by up to 50% this potentially allows new PET packaging applications for longer shelf lives or high gas pressures. PET final products require high stiffness whether for carbonated soft drinks or rough handling during distribution. The PET/Somasif nanocomposites exhibit an increase in the tensile modulus of PET nanocomposite films by up to 125% which can be attributed to many reasons including the good dispersion of these clays within the PET matrix as shown by TEM images as well as the good compatibility between the PET chains and the Somasif clays. The tensile test results for the PET/clay nanocomposites micro-moulded samples shows that the injection speed is crucial factor affecting the mechanical properties of polymer injection moulded products.