OPTIMIZING OIL RECOVERY IN A CARBONATE RESERVOIR THROUGH INTEGRATED RESERVOIR SIMULATION STUDIES

A three-dimensional finite-difference reservoir simulator, integrated in an EOR expert system, has been used to determine the reservoir management and production strategies to optimize the oil recovery from a carbonate reservoir. The reservoir is a candidate for an EOR process or otherwise subject to abandonment. After screening the reservoir for an appropriate EOR process on the basis of its properties, it was determined that miscible carbon-dioxide injection is the most suitable process. The management strategies involved studying different design parameters to maximize the project profitability. The injection techniques that were tested in this study include: (1) water-alternating-gas (WAG), (2) simultaneous water-alternating-gas (SWAG) injection, and (3) gas injection in the bottom of the reservoir with water injection in the reservoir top. All simulation runs were conducted using permeability fields that have been conditioned with core data taken from wells in the field. Specific strategy that was used includes the use of horizontal injectors in conjunction with vertical producers. This well configuration has been shown to yield the best oil recovery compared to other well configurations. Simulation results show that the most economical method to produce this reservoir was to simultaneously inject water at the reservoir top and gas at the reservoir bottom. This production strategy has resulted in better sweep efficiency and therefore high oil recovery and good economics.     

An Accurate and Very Low Complexity LMMSE Channel Estimation Technique for OFDM Systems

In this paper, we propose a very low linear minimum mean square error (LMMSE) channel estimation technique for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The conventional LMMSE, based on the autocorrelation channel matrix, requires \(O(N_P^3)\) operations (\(N_P\) represents the total number pilot in one OFDM symbol). By exploiting the structure of the channel autocorrelation matrix, we propose a very low complexity LMMSE channel estimator which requires only \(O(N_PlogN_P)\) operations. Simulation results show that the proposed technique yields the same performances as well as the classical LMMSE in terms of bit error rate and mean square error.     

Decentralized multiuser diversity with opportunistic packet transmission in MIMO wireless sensor networks

In this study, we consider a single-hop wireless sensor network where both the sensor nodes and the controller node have multiple antennas. We focus on single beam opportunistic communication and propose a threshold-based medium access control (MAC) scheme for uplink packet transmission which exploits multiuser diversity gain without feedback in a decentralized manner. Packet transfer from sensor nodes to the controller node is initiated when the channel quality of any node exceeds the predefined threshold based on the effective signal-to-noise ratio (ESNR) measurements at the sensor nodes through linear combining techniques. The optimum threshold is determined to maximize the probability of successful packet transmission where only one sensor node transmits its packet in one time-slot. The proposed scheme trades the successful packet rate to increase the SNR of the successful packets assuming Rayleigh fading and collision-based reception model. Computer simulations confirm that proposed scheme has higher successful packet SNR compared to the simple time division multiple access (TDMA)-based MAC scheme with round-robin fashion. The use of multiple antennas at the sensor nodes can also improve the throughput of proposed scheme compared with our previous scheme without implementing the spatial diversity at the SNs.     

Improved QIM-based watermarking integrated to JPEG2000 coding scheme

In recent years it has been recognized that embedding information in wavelet transform domain leads to more robust blind watermarks. A major difficulty, however, in watermarking in transform domain lies in the fact that constraints on the allowable distortion at any pixel are specified in the spatial domain. In order to insert an invisible watermark, the current trend has been to model the Human Visual System and specify a masking function which yields the allowable distortion. However, this method is highly suboptimal since it leads to irreversible losses at the embedding stage because the watermark is being adjusted in the spatial domain with no care for the consequences in the transform domain. The central contribution of this work is the proposal of integrated wavelet-based non-linear scaling QIM (NLS–QIM) watermark design to reduce fidelity problem. We consider the watermarking process in conjunction with lossy JPEG2000 compression engine. Experimental results have shown that the proposed watermarking strategy exhibits high robustness to compression attacks with respect to the reconstruction quality. Moreover, it provides a significant capacity improvement compared to other hybrid watermarking coding methods in the literature.     

Differential Effects of Adrenergic and Corticosteroid Hormonal Systems on Human Short- and Long-Term Declarative Memory for Emotionally Arousing Material.

The effects of adrenergic and corticosteroid hormonal systems on emotional memory were measured in 64 young men. Placebo, propranolol (40 or 80 mg; beta blocker), or metyiapone (corticosteroid synthesis inhibitor) was administered before the viewing of a story composed of emotional and neutral segments. Short- and long-term declarative memory for the story was assessed. Propranolol 40 mg had no effects on declarative memory. Propranolol 80 mg impaired short- and long-term declarative memory for emotionally arousing material. Metyrapone did not impair short-term declarative memory but impaired long-term declarative memory for emotionally arousing and neutral material. Results demonstrate that adrenergic and corticosteroid hormonal systems differentially affect declarative memory for emotionally arousing and neutral material, and suggest that interactions between adrenal hormonal systems modulate emotionally arousing declarative memory in humans. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Metal flow prediction during sheet-metal punching process using the finite element method

In this study, part springback and metal flow caused by punch penetration into a sheet was investigated by punching circular test specimens with concentric circular tools. Strain gauges were bonded on the upper surface of the specimens at radial distances varying from 2 mm to 10 mm from the cutting edge of the punch. The experiments were used to validate a finite element model (FEM) valid for numerical simulation of sheet-metal punching processes. Damage and crack propagation were taken into account by means of an elastoplastic constitutive law. The main difficulty encountered in simulating this operation is describing the behaviour of the sheet continuously from the beginning of the operation up to the total rupture. The choice of a behaviour law is crucial, since each successive step in the whole process has to be described accurately. In this investigation, an elastoplastic behaviour law coupled with damage was retained to describe the progressive damage accumulation in the workpieces. During the analysis, the initiation of a crack is assumed to occur at any point in the structure where the damage reaches its critical value D _c . The crack propagation is simulated by the propagation of a completely damaged area. This is taken into account in the FEM by a decrease in the stiffness of the broken elements. The numerical results obtained by the simulation were compared with the experimental ones in order to verify the validity of the proposed FEM.     

Effect of Load on the Hardness of Hot Isostatically Pressed Silicon Nitride

The hardness values of five hot isostatic pressed silicon nitride materials, with varying densities, were measured at loads between 1 and 200 N. For the fully dense materials, the calculated hardness decreased from about 30 to 15 GPa as the load increased to about 10 N, and the hardness remained constant at higher loads. For the samples that showed indentation size effect (ISE), cracks formed at the corners of the indentation, starting at the lowest load of 1 N. Materials with lower densities had lower hardness values, displayed a very small or no ISE, and formed corner cracks only at high loads. For the samples that displayed an ISE at low loads, the formation of cracks was analyzed using the Niihara et al . criterion for Palmqvist cracks.     

Parameter identification of an elasto-plastic behaviour using artificial neural networks–genetic algorithm method

The simulation of the metal forming processes requires accurate constitutive models to describe the material behaviour at finite strain taking into account several conditions. The choice of a rheological model and the determination of its parameters should be made from a test that generates such conditions. The major difficulty encountered is that there is no experimental test satisfying all these criteria. The use of more than one test seems more and more essential, and it is utilized to characterize the rheological behaviour at operating conditions that correspond to metal forming applications. An Inverse analysis is then considered. Therefore, the difficulty lies within the long computing time taken when an optimization procedure is coupled with a finite element computation (FEC) to identify the material parameters. In order to solve the computing time problem, this paper proposes a hybrid identification method based on finite elements, neural network computations and genetic algorithm (GA) of an elasto-plastic behaviour model. The strategy suggested is then applied to identify the Karafillis and Boyce criterion and the Voce parameters model of the Stainless Steel AISI 304 using two tests (plane tensile test and bulge test with a circular die) at the same time.     

Mechanical characterization and modeling of poly (β‐hydroxybutyrate)‐co‐poly(β‐hydroxyvalerate)–Alfa fiber‐reinforced composites

The mechanical properties of biobased composites of poly(β‐hydroxybutyrate)‐co‐poly(β‐hydroxyvalerate) biopolymer continuously reinforced with unidirectional Alfa fibers are investigated via tensile testing of oriented composite laminates. Simple mechanical models for the elastic stiffness, strength, and nonlinear hardening of the biobased composites are proposed with an emphasis on techniques that only require the independent properties of the fiber and matrix to facilitate composite design. Rule of mixtures (ROM) approaches are found to effectively predict the elastic properties of the composites but generally overestimate strength. Modified ROM approaches that discount the contribution of the matrix in the fiber loading direction and the contribution of the fiber in the transverse loading direction provide the most accurate strength predictions. Apparent elastic properties for composites with varying fiber orientations are predicted using a modified orthotropic laminate plate method which was found to overestimate composite stiffness in off‐axis loading directions. Postyield nonlinear hardening is modeled using a calibrated continuum yield and plasticity model and demonstrated to provide a close match of the experimental results. POLYM. COMPOS., 35:1758–1766, 2014. © 2014 Society of Plastics Engineers