Hydrocarbon displacement at the pore scale is mainly controlled by the wetness properties of the porous media. Consequently, several techniques including nanofluid flooding were implemented to manipulate the wetting behavior of the pore space in oil reservoirs. This study thus focuses on monitoring the displacement of oil from artificial glass porous media, as a representative for sandstone reservoirs, before and after nanofluid flooding. Experiments were conducted at various temperatures (25 – 50° C), nanoparticles concentrations (0.001 – 0.05 wt% SiO2 NPs), salinity (0.1 – 2 wt% NaCl), and flooding time. Images were taken via a high-resolution microscopic camera and analyzed to investigate the displacement of the oil at different conditions. In addition, contact angle measurements on quartz surfaces were also conducted at similar conditions to understand the flow behavior in the porous media. Further, zeta potential and particle size distribution measurements were conducted to examine the stability of the injected nanofluids. Results revealed that the injection of nanofluids into oil-wet pore space can significantly enhance the recovery rate of hydrocarbon by altering the wettability of the porous media. However, salinity, particularly at high nanoparticles concentration (≥ 0.005) can dramatically reduce the efficiency of nanofluid. Further, increased aging time can improve the ability of nanofluid to alter the wettability of the surface, and thus more oil can be displaced. Thus, nanofluid can efficiently enhance oil recovery if correctly formulated.
In this paper, wavelets were used to study the multivariate fractional Brownian motion through the deviations of the random process to find an efficient estimation of Hurst exponent. The results of simulations experiments were shown that the performance of the proposed estimator was efficient. The estimation process was made by taking advantage of the detail coefficients stationarity from the wavelet transform, as the variance of this coefficient showed the power-low behavior. We use two wavelet filters (Haar and db5) to manage minimizing the mean square error of the model.
In this work, an inventive photovoltaic evaporative cooling (PV/EC) hybrid system was constructed and experimentally investigated. The PV/EC hybrid system has the prosperous advantage of producing electrical energy and cooling the PV panel besides providing cooled-humid air. Two cooling techniques were utilized: backside evaporative cooling (case #1) and combined backside evaporative cooling with a front-side water spray technique (case #2). The water spraying on the front side of the PV panel is intermittent to minimize water and power consumption depending on the PV panel temperature. In addition, two pad thicknesses of 5 cm and 10 cm were investigated at three different water flow rates of 1, 2, and 3 lpm. In Case #1,
... Show MoreGingival crevicular fluid (GCF) may reflect the events associated with orthodontic tooth movement. Attempts have been conducted to identify biomarkers reflecting optimum orthodontic force, unwanted sequallea (i.e. root resorption) and accelerated tooth movement. The aim of the present study is to find out a standardized GCF collection, storage and total protein extraction method from apparently healthy gingival sites with orthodontics that is compatible with further high-throughput proteomics. Eighteen patients who required extractions of both maxillary first premolars were recruited in this study. These teeth were randomly assigned to either heavy (225g) or light force (25g), and their site specific GCF was collected at baseline and aft
... Show MoreImage classification is the process of finding common features in images from various classes and applying them to categorize and label them. The main problem of the image classification process is the abundance of images, the high complexity of the data, and the shortage of labeled data, presenting the key obstacles in image classification. The cornerstone of image classification is evaluating the convolutional features retrieved from deep learning models and training them with machine learning classifiers. This study proposes a new approach of “hybrid learning” by combining deep learning with machine learning for image classification based on convolutional feature extraction using the VGG-16 deep learning model and seven class
... Show MoreThis study concerns the removal of a trihydrate antibiotic (Amoxicillin) from synthetically contaminated water by adsorption on modified bentonite. The bentonite was modified using hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (HTAB), which turned it from a hydrophilic to a hydrophobic material. The effects of different parameters were studied in batch experiments. These parameters were contact time, solution pH, agitation speed, initial concentration (C0) of the contaminant, and adsorbent dosage. Maximum removal of amoxicillin (93 %) was achieved at contact time = 240 min, pH = 10, agitation speed = 200 rpm, initial concentration = 30 ppm, and adsorbent dosage = 3 g bentonite per 1L of pollutant solution. The characterization of the adsorbent, modi
... Show MoreIn this work, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) nanocomposite was prepared and hybrid with Graphene (Gr) by casting method. The morphological and optical properties were investigated. Fourier Transformer-Infrared (FT-IR) indicates the presence of primary distinctive peaks belonging to vibration groups that describe the prepared samples. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images showed a uniform dispersion of graphene within the PVP-MWCNT nanocomposite. The results of the optical study show decrease in the energy gap with increasing MWCNT and graphene concentration. The absorption coefficient spectra indicate the presence of two absorption peaks at 282 and 287 nm attributed to the π-π* electronic tr
... Show MoreThis paper proposes a novel finite-time generalized proportional integral observer (FTGPIO) based a sliding mode control (SMC) scheme for the tracking control problem of high order uncertain systems subject to fast time-varying disturbances. For this purpose, the construction of the controller consists of two consecutive steps. First, the novel FTGPIO is designed to observe unmeasurable plant dynamics states and disturbance with its higher time derivatives in finite time rather than infinite time as in the standard GPIO. In the FTGPO estimator, the finite time convergence rate of estimations is well achieved, whereas the convergence rate of estimations by classical GPIO is asymptotic and slow. Secondly, on the basis of the finite and fast e
... Show More