Experimental Investigation of the Effects of Different Parameters on the Rate of Asphaltene Deposition in Laminar Flow and Its Prediction Using Heat Transfer Approach

In this study, asphaltene deposition from crude oil on the pipe surface has been studied experimentally using a novel designed test loop. Washing technique is used to quantitatively measure the rate of asphaltene deposition during laminar flow in the steel pipe. The effects of oil velocity, asphaltene content, and surface temperature on the thickness of asphaltene deposition are investigated. The results show that the asphaltene deposition rate increases with increasing surface temperature, results in asphaltene content reduction of the flowing crude oil. As the oil velocity increases, less deposition was noticed on the surface of the pipe. Besides, thermal approach was applied to the experimental procedure which shows good agreements between the predicted thickness and the measured value from the test loop.     

Prediction of Chemical Inhibitors Efficiency for Reducing Deposition Thickness Using Artificial Neural Network

Prediction of efficiency of chemical inhibitors to mitigation of deposition thickness is a key to developing crude oil transportation process. In this work, a feed-forward artificial neural network (ANN) algorithm has been applied to predict the influence of the mitigation effect of ethylene-co-vinyl acetate (EVA) copolymer and its combination with chloroform (C), acetone (A), P-xylene (PX), and petroleum ether (PE) on the deposition thickness in the pipeline. An optimized three-layer feed-forward ANN model using properties of the oil pipeline such as: inlet oil temperature, environmental (coolant mixture) temperature, oil Reynolds numbers; properties of injected inhibitor such as molecular weight, boiling point, and amount of injection; and time is presented. Different networks are considered and trained using 62661 data sets; the accuracy of the network is validated by 20888 testing data sets. To verify the network generalization, 29 different experiment data sets of four different set of inhibitors have been considered. It is found that the proposed ANN model is an alternative to experimentation and predicts deposition thickness without experimentation, vast information, and tedious and time-consuming calculations.     

管系内一维可压缩流动数值建模与特性分析

针对复杂管系内可压缩流体,基于有限体积法,采用HLLC(Harten-Lax-vanLeerContact)格式和黎曼求解器构建了有限控制体数值离散方法,引入虚拟节点用于连接有限控制体,借助虚拟节点给出控制体之间数值通量的计算格式,发展了一种管道内一维流动数值建模方法。针对含有分支管路的管系,在管道连接部位构建了分支管路拟一维流动数值计算模型。基于所发展的一维流动数值方法,建立了变径管道和含60°分支管道内流动计算模型,验证了该方法的收敛性和有效性;基于虚拟节点的数值格式处理变径管激波问题具有一定精度优势。研究了变径管和分支管模型中可压缩流体激波、稀疏波等的传播机理,分析了管径对相邻支管压力的影响,为工程管路设计提供了参考。     

Influence of CrN surface compound on the initial stages of high temperature oxidation of ferritic stainless steel

Segregation phenomena and formation of surface compounds on Fe-17Cr (ferritic stainless steel) were studied at temperatures up to 800 °C upon annealing and kinetically controlled oxidation by photoelectron spectroscopy and inelastic electron background analysis. The results revealed the formation of a chromium nitride surface compound during annealing in ultrahigh vacuum at temperatures exceeding 527 °C. Surface enrichment of P, As, and other trace elements became more prominent at higher temperatures approaching 800 °C. It was found that nitrogen was buried below the surface oxide layer during oxygen exposure, yet it had little effect on the rate of oxidation. However, the formation of CrN surface compound promoted the selective oxidation of Cr initially, which is of great importance in processing and application environments involving high temperature and controlled atmosphere conditions.     

Nonlinear vibration analysis of pipeline considering the effects of soft nonlinear clamp

Applied Mathematics and Mechanics - Soft nonlinear support is a major engineering project, but there are few relevant studies. In this paper, a dynamic pipeline model with soft nonlinear supports...     

Vacancy-solute complexes and their clusters in iron

In this contribution, several vacancy-solute complexes in iron are investigated theoretically from the viewpoint of positron annihilation. In particular, V-Si, V-P, V-Cr, V-Mn, V-Ni, V-Cu and V-Mo complexes are examined. In addition, nano-sized vacancy-Cu clusters in the Fe matrix are also studied. We concentrate on positron lifetimes and coincidence Doppler broadening profiles that bring complementary information about the studied complexes and their clusters. Positron calculations are carried out using the atomic superposition method employing realistic atomic configurations obtained recently using an ab initio pseudopotential method (vacancy-solute complexes) and Monte Carlo/molecular dynamics methods (vacancy-Cu clusters). The main aim of this study is to predict as to what extent such defects are detectable and differentiable using positron annihilation techniques. The results obtained are discussed in the context of experimental data available in the literature.     

A new parallel chasing algorithm for transforming arrowhead matrices to tridiagonal form

Rutishauser, Gragg and Harrod and finally H.Y. Zha used the same class of chasing algorithms for transforming arrowhead matrices to tridiagonal form. Using a graphical theoretical approach, we propose a new chasing algorithm. Although this algorithm has the same sequential computational complexity and backward error properties as the old algorithms, it is better suited for a pipelined approach. The parallel algorithm for this new chasing method is described, with performance results on the Paragon and nCUBE. Comparison results between the old and the new algorithms are also presented.

     

A Reduction Technique for Natural Gas Transmission Network Optimization Problems

We address the problem of minimizing the fuel consumption incurred by compressor stations in steady-state natural gas transmission networks. In the practical world, these type of instances are very large, in terms of the number of decision variables and the number of constraints, and very complex due to the presence of non-linearity and non-convexity in both the set of feasible solutions and the objective function. In this paper we present a study of the properties of gas pipeline networks, and exploit them to develop a technique that can be used to reduce significantly problem dimension, without disrupting problem structure, making it more amenable to solution.     

On-line electrolytic dissolution of alloys in flow-injection analysis. Part 3. Multi-elemental analysis of stainless steels by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry

The simultaneous determination of chromium, nickel, manganese, silicon and iron in stainless steels was achieved by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) after on-line electrodissolution using an improved flow-through electrolytic cell. The solution containing the electrodissolved ions was impelled by an air carrier stream in a flow-injection manifold towards a mixing-dilution chamber. From this chamber, the diluted and homogenized solution was aspirated and nebulized into the ICP torch. A quantification procedure is proposed for direct solid analysis without the use of certified reference materials. Under the proposed electrolysis conditions, up to 60 solid samples can be analysed per hour. Results obtained for alloying elements in austenitic and ferritic stainless steels were in good agreement with the certified values.     

Cs-137γ射线透射法检测输油管道油垢的模拟实验研究

用γ射线透射法对输油管道油垢检测进行了模拟实验研究。实验装置由Cs－137γ源和NaI(TL）闪烁探测器组成。采用石蜡代替油垢，研究了石蜡厚度响应，并对测量方法进行了研究。测量结果表明，石蜡厚度响应是灵敏的。