In this study, fracture grouting technique of saturated, granular soils of different fine content were investigated. Model tests were carried out by using fluid particulate grouts namely micro fine cement and ordinary portland cement grouts. Basically, relationships were obtained between soil conditions (grain size distribution, relative density, overburden stress) and grouting parameters (type of grout, grouting pressure, amount of injected grout, rheological properties of the grout or water/solids ratio). At the end of the tests the soil specimens were exposed and the final grout shapes were observed and correlated with the grouting parameters. Response of soil specimens to grouting process under different grouting pressures and grout compositions was analyzed. Amount of heave occurred at the top of the specimen during injections was recorded at each test. Micro fine cement grout and ordinary portland cement grout showed significant differences rheologically. Micro fine cement grout, with much higher Blaine fineness, lower specific gravity, lower viscosity and cohesion, lower bleed and filtration coefficients, made it possible to fracture the fine sandy soils of different fine content. Results of tests performed with micro fine cement grouts show that fracturing pressure generally decreases with an increase in the water content of the grout but generally increases as the fine content of the soil increases. A higher relative density of the soil increases the fracturing pressure significantly. The volumes of grout injected into soil specimens until fracturing show an increasing tendency as the water/solids ratio decrease. Ordinary portland cement grout, on the other hand, exposed to high pressure filtration during grouting in relatively clean sand and addition of some amount of kaolinite or fines is required to reduce the filtration percentages during grouting in order to fracture grout the sandy soil. Filtration due to high permeabilities results in accumulation of cement particles around the injection point and grouting tends to take a form similar to compaction grouting.

In this study simultaneously developing single phase, laminar and incompressible flow in a micro gap between parallel plates is numerically analyzed by including the effect of variation in thermal conductivity and viscosity with temperature. Variable property solutions for continuity, momentum and energy equations are performed in a coupled manner, for air as a Newtonian fluid. In these analyses the rarefaction effect, which is important for the slip flow regime, is taken into account by imposing slip velocity and temperature jump boundary conditions to the wall boundaries. Mainly, the influence of viscous dissipation, axial conduction, geometric parameters and rarefaction on the property variation effect is aimed to be discussed in detail. Therefore, the effects of variable thermal conductivity and viscosity are investigated simultaneously with the effects of rarefaction, geometric parameters, viscous dissipation and axial conduction. The difference between constant and variable solutions in terms of heat transfer characteristics is related to the effects of viscous dissipation axial conduction and rarefaction. According to results, property variation is substantially effective in the entrance region where temperature and velocity gradients are high. On the other hand, property variation effects are not significant for fully developed air flows in microchannel.

Properly preparing the drilling fluid is an essential part of any successful drilling operation, especially in complex operations like deviated and horizontal drilling. Understanding the flow behavior of the polymers used in the drilling fluids under different conditions takes a key part in this preparation. In this study, shear rheology of some traditionally used water soluble polymers in drilling and completion fluids / namely PAC (polyanionic cellulose) and xanthan gum, were investigated experimentally. Instead of an oilfield standard Fann Model 35 Viscometer, an Ofite Model 900 Viscometer was used because of its capability to measure at ultra-low shear rates. Effects of the concentration of the polymer, time of shear applied, test temperature and effects of aging were examined. Rheological measurements were conducted between the shear rate ranges of 0.01 to 1000s-1 with concentrations changing from 0.25 to 1.5 grams of polymer per 350 milliliters of water (equivalent to 0.25 to 1.5 lb/bbl). Rheograms were constructed to identify the effect the polymers in question have on the flow characteristics of the drilling fluid. An appropriate constitutive model was used to define the flow behavior of the polymer in question mathematically. It was observed from the constructed rheograms that increase in polymer concentration results in consistent increase of apparent viscosity. Amount of time of shear does not affect the selected polymers if they are dynamically aged at least for two hours. Also as expected increasing temperature of the sample lowers the apparent viscosity considerably.

A global steady increase of energy consumption coupled with the decline of conventional oil resources points to a more aggressive exploitation of heavy oil. Heavy oil is a major source of energy in this century with a worldwide base reserve exceeding 2.5 trillion barrels. Management decisions and production strategies from thermal oil recovery processes are frequently based on reservoir simulation. A proper description of the physical properties, particularly oil viscosity, is essential in performing reliable modeling studies of fluid flow in the reservoir. We simulated cyclic steam injections on the highly viscous Hamaca oil, with a viscosity of over 10,000 cp at ambient temperature, and the production was drastically impacted by up to an order of magnitude when using improper mixing rules to describe the oil viscosity. This thesis demonstrates the importance of these mixing rules and alerts reservoir engineers to the significance of using different options simulators have built in their platforms to describe the viscosity of heavy oils. Log linear and power mixing rules do not provide enough flexibility to describe the viscosity of extra heavy oil with temperature. A recently implemented mixing rule in a commercial simulator has been studied providing satisfactory results. However, the methodology requires substantial interventions, and cannot be automatically updated. We provide guidelines to improve it and suggest more flexible mixing rules that could easily be implemented in commercial simulators. We also provide a methodology to determine the adequate time for each one of the periods in cyclic steam injection: injection, soaking and production. There is a lot of speculation in this matter and one of the objectives of this thesis is to better understand and provide guidelines to optimize oil production using proper lengths in each one of these periods. We have found that the production and injection periods should be similar in time length. Nevertheless, the production period should not be less than the injection period. On the other hand, the soaking period should be as short as possible because it is unproductive time in terms of field oil production for the well and therefore it translates into a negative cash flow for a company.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the problem of finding a common element of the set of solutions of a generalized equilibrium problem (for short, GEP) and the set of fixed points of a nonexpansive mapping in a Hilbert space. First, by using the well-known KKM technique we derive the existence and uniqueness of solutions of the auxiliary problems for the GEP. Second, on account of this result and Nadler's theorem, we introduce an iterative scheme by the viscosity approximation method for finding a common element of the set of solutions of the GEP and the set of fixed points of the nonexpansive mapping. Furthermore, it is proven that the sequences generated by this iterative scheme converge strongly to a common element of the set of solutions of the GEP and the set of fixed points of the nonexpansive mapping.

In the near couple years, the applications of amorphous alloys have attracted great attention due to their characteristics and future potential. This research is intended to synthesis a lighter Mg-based amorphous alloy as the imprinting materials for micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) with a high glass forming ability (GFA) and lower glass transition temperature (Tg). Also, the workability of the Mg-based metallic glasses is examined in terms of several viscous flow behaviors and parameters obtained from the thermomechanical analysis (TMA). The lighter Mg-based metallic glasses exhibit their superior glass forming ability, and can be cast into bulk metallic glasses (BMGs). Based on the thermal analysis of the Mg-Cu-Y glassy materials, the evaluation of the glass forming ability and thermal stability for searching the optimum alloy composition is conducted. By using Mg58Cu31Y11 amorphous alloy with the best composition as the micro-forming specimens, imprinting was made by hot pressing at 150oC with several applied compressive stresses to form the hexagonal micro-lens arrays. Finite element simulation using 3D Deform software is also applied to trace the microforming evolution, and to compare with the experimental observations. The results demonstrate that the imprinting is feasible and promising. On the other hand, the Mg-Cu-Gd BMGs with even better GFA than Mg-Cu-Y are explored in terms of their thermomechanical properties. Extension of this study is performed partially by Cu replacing by Ag or B for the improvement of maximum diameter and thermal stability. And the workability of these Mg-Cu-(Ag, B)-Gd metallic glasses, namely, Mg65Cu25-xAgxGd10 (x = 0, 3, 10 at %) and Mg65Cu22B3Gd10 is evaluated in terming of the thermomechanical parameters, viscous flow behavior, deformability, and the deformation model. It is found the fragility for viscous deformation would increase with the replacement of Ag or B, leading to the negative factors for the micro-forming and nano-imprinting practices. This conclusion is supported by the many extracted parameters. Thus, even the B-additive Mg based BMG has much higher hardness and Ag-additive Mg based BMG has the larger maximum rod diameter, they are more difficult to be formed, appearing as a negative factor in the micro-forming or nano-imprinting industry. The base Mg65Cu25Gd10 alloy stilly appears to be more promising than the Ag or B-containing alloys when the viscous forming is under consideration.

Thesis (Doctoral)--Universität Karlsruhe, 2001. / Abstract in German. Hochschulschrift = Thèse/Mémoire. Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-133). Also available via the World Wide Web. http://www.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/indexer-vvv/2002/bio-geo/1

This thesis was conducted in cooperation with a Swedish company that develops and manufactures plastic compounds. An increasing need for identifying material properties is seen within the industry in order to predict the outcome of the extrusion process by using simulations. The purpose of this study was to expand a material database with the results obtained through various measurements of the material parameters in order to enable simulations. The numerical descriptions would be analyzed and validated in relation to the obtained results and conducted methods to enable implementation of the material data into the industry. In order to fulfill the purpose, scientific methods was applied by chosen literature studies, research approaches and experimental research. Machine tests were conducted to collect relevant output data that was compared with the results obtained during the simulation process where the experimentally determined material parameters were applied in a material database. Typical injection molding qualities of PET, POM, PC/ABS, SAN and PA66 has been investigated by conducting measurement methods described by standards of the melt flow rate, specific heats, viscosity, crystallinity and melt- and glass transition temperatures. With exception of the viscosity, the material parameters are considered to have high external validity and high reliability and can be implemented into the industry. The bulk- and melt density was determined by adapted methods that need further investigations. The external validity is reduced until these methods and measurements have been validated. The determined material parameters proved to be able to generate reliable simulation results that indicate of how the extrusion process will turn out based on the output values investigated. The data obtained through machine tests was compared with the results that were achieved through simulations and deviated at most 10.9% from the actual outcomes. The viscosity is considered to be the main factor that affects the differences of the output data between the machine tests and the simulation results.

Using equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, an analysis of the key thermophysical properties critical to heat transfer processes is performed. Replication of thermal conductivity and shear viscosity observations found in experimental investigations were performed using a theoretical nanopthesis-fluid system and a novel colloid-fluid interaction potential to investigate the key nanofluid parameters. Analysis of both the heat current (thermal conductivity) and stress (shear viscosity) autocorrelation functions have suggested that the dominant physical mechanisms for thermal and momentum transport arises from enhancements to the longitudinal and transverse acoustic modes energy transfer brought about by the increased mass ratio of the nanopthesis to the fluid. This conclusion was further supported by analysis of the local density fluctuations surrounding increasing nanopthesis diameters where the longitudinal acoustic mode characteristics for density fluxes were seen to be enhanced by the presence of the heavier platinum nanopthesiss. It is then concluded that the key macroscopic characteristic in obtaining the largest thermal energy transfer enhancement is through the mass of the nanopthesis relative to the base fluid. Also, the small local density effects in the nanofluid are greatly affects the viscosity calculations. These conclusions provide the theoretical framework for many of the experimental results obtained.

It is the main goal of this thesis to study the regularity of solutions for a nonlinear elliptic system coming from population segregation, and the free boundary problem that is obtained in the limit as the competition parameter goes to infinity [mathematical symbol]. The main results are existence and Hölder regularity of solutions of the elliptic system, characterization of the limit as a free boundary problem, and Lipschitz regularity at the boundary for the limiting problem. / text