Permeability Reduction by Sediment Retention in Saturated Sand Columns

Recently, researchers in coastal engineering have paid more attention to the role of sediment (particulate organic matter adsorbed on fine solid particles, diameter range 1– $100~\upmu $ m) in considering the biodiversity of estuaries. In this study, permeability reduction of saturated sand columns by sediment retention is investigated through laboratory experiments. Water-based sediment was injected through vertical sand columns under a constant water head difference, with different flow rates, porosities of the sand columns, and the chemical properties of sediment. It was found that the permeability reduction was uniquely correlated with flow rate and sediment properties; that is, increasing flow rate or using sediment containing high amounts of organic matter causes a significant reduction in permeability. Furthermore, an approximate experimental equation is proposed to predict the retention mass of sediment. This equation can predict the retention mass with a relative error of less than 5 %. In addition, a new model is proposed to determine the permeability reduction by sediment retention. This model could predict the permeability reduction with a relative error of 10 %.     

基于颗粒离散元的沙纹演变大涡模拟研究

应用大涡模拟、"点球" 浸入边界法和基于"事件驱动" 模型和"弹簧-阻尼" 模型的颗粒离散元法, 数值模拟了明渠湍流中沙纹的演变. 通过对不同谢尔兹数下无沙纹床面的推移质输沙率进行计算, 并与经典输沙率公式进行对比, 验证了模型的精度和可靠性. 随后, 对明渠湍流中沙纹床面的演变过程进行了数值模拟, 计算了有沙纹床面的推移质输沙率、沙纹长度和高度、等效床面高度的最大值、最小值和平均值、沙纹形状阻力、体积流速随时间的变化曲线. 研究发现:初始平整的床面在较短的时间内(tU_b=h≈100) 发展出数条沙纹, 随后沙纹逐渐发展, 在tU_b=h为1 600~2 000 时, 沙纹发生合并. 在沙纹数量不变的条件下, 沙纹高度随时间近似呈线性增长, 而沙纹的长度的平均值却保持恒定. 随着沙纹高度的增大, 输沙率和体积流速逐渐降低, 沙纹形状阻力则逐渐增大;当沙纹发生合并时, 沙纹高度快速增加, 输沙率、体积流速和沙纹形状阻力也出现了大幅跳跃. 在同等的水流强度条件下, 有沙纹床面的输沙率小于平整床面的输沙率.      

波浪载荷导致黄河口潮坪沉积物垂向运移现场观测研究

2005年8月7~8日,现代黄河三角洲刁口地区经历了一次由台风"麦莎"引起的风暴潮过程。通过对比分析风暴潮前后受保护潮坪滩面沉积物的粒度特征变化情况,发现了风暴潮期间在强烈的波浪载荷导致的渗流作用下,粉质土海床出现了极细粉粒由下向上运移并输出滩面的现象。结合现场试验期间采集到的孔隙水压力监测数据,本文基于海床动力响应的观点分析了其成因机制。     

河口混合与泥沙输运

根据振荡边界层理论和波流分解方法,导出了河口往复水流的流速垂向分布廓线,据此建立了河口垂向准二维水流、盐度、泥沙运动模型。对泥沙输运,完整地考虑了其对流、扩散、起动和沉降的动力学过程。模拟结果与实测资料进行了对比。应用该模型研究河口泥沙输运,分析了河口混合对泥沙输运的影响及最大浑浊带的时空变化规律。     

Sediment inception under breaking tidal bores

A tidal bore may develop in an estuary during the spring tide conditions when the tidal range exceeds 5–6 m and the flood tide is confined to a narrow funnelled estuary with low freshwater levels. The tidal bore is of great importance for the geomorphology of the estuarine zone. In this study, some physical modelling was performed to investigate the sediment motion inception beneath a tidal bore on a movable gravel bed. The results show the significant impact of breaking bore propagation on the gravel bed motion. The dominant contribution to sediment transport inception is the longitudinal pressure gradient force, while the transient recirculation motion next to the bed yields to a drag force acting in the upstream direction and contributing to sediment motion.     

Modeling fluid and heat transport in the reactive, porous bed of downdraft (biomass) gasifier

A fluid flow and heat transfer model has been developed for the reactive, porous bed of the biomass gasifier to simulate pressure drop, temperature profile in the bed and flow rates. The conservation equations, momentum equation and energy equation are used to describe fluid and heat transport in porous gasifier bed. The model accounted for drag at wall, and the effect of radial as well as axial variation in bed porosity to predict pressure drop in bed. Heat transfer has been modeled using effective thermal conductivity approach. Model predictions are validated against the experiments, while effective thermal conductivity values are tested qualitatively using models available in literature. Parametric analysis has been carried out to investigate the effect of various parameters on bed temperature profile and pressure drop through the gasifier. The temperature profile is found to be very sensitive to gas flow rate, and heat generation in oxidation zone, while high bed temperature, gas flow rate and the reduction in feedstock particle size are found to cause a marked increase in pressure drop through the gasifier. The temperatures of the down stream zones are more sensitive to any change in heat generation in the bed as compared to upstream zone. Author recommends that the size of preheating zone may be extended up to pyrolysis zone in order to enhance preheating of input air, while thermal insulation should not be less than 15 cm.     

Three-Dimensional Characterization of Permeability at the Core Scale

In this article, we introduce an integrated method for characterizing permeability heterogeneity at the core scale. It combines the results of laboratory core flooding with already-developed field scale history matching techniques such as gradual deformation and pilot points. Prior to any experiment, X-ray computed tomography (CT) imaging techniques are used to obtain three-dimensional porosity distribution in cores. The samples are submitted to viscous, miscible displacement of water by water–glycerin mixture. The dynamic data collected during injection are the time variations in inlet–outlet pressure drop and three-dimensional CT-scan concentration maps of invading fluid collected at successive times. We develop an inversion or matching process which takes advantage of the available data to characterize the spatial distribution of permeability heterogeneities within core samples. Permeability is assumed to be related to porosity. This matching process involves two successive optimizations. First, an initial permeability guess derived from porosity is modified by varying deterministic parameters until the corresponding simulated pressure answer fits the measured pressure drop. Second, an extended optimization process with both deterministic and stochastic parameters is run to match pressure drop and concentration data. This methodology is applied to a synthetic example for which the permeability–porosity relation is known. It yields a three-dimensional permeability model reproducing the reference pressure and concentration maps. The methodology is also applied to experimental data. In this case, it provides three-dimensional permeability models leading to an improved, but perfectible data match. A major difficulty is the unknown relationship between permeability and porosity.     

Deposition Behavior of Mud in Sand Beds Under the Effects of Organic Properties

Mud transport in sand fractures has yielded a large body of information which is used to understand the sludge-ization of tidal flats, to improve the tidal flat environment, and to design artificial tidal flats. Over the past decades, studies of particle transport in saturated and unsaturated porous media provide a very clear understanding of the processes that govern particle transport. It has been reported that the particle transport and capture in porous media are significantly governed by hydraulic pressure gradient, porosity, and permeability distribution. The objective of this research is to present a study of mud transport in saturated sand beds, aiming to delineate the effects of the organic properties of mud on the general behavior of mud transport and deposition condition in pores. Laboratory experiments were undertaken to look into the effects of the organic properties. The experiments were conducted at a flow rate of 1.3 cm³/s. Many types of muds that have differences in the organic properties were injected into different sand beds at a concentration of 120 mg/L. It was observed that the deposition condition of mud in the beds was mostly due to the organic properties of mud. Mud containing high amounts of organic matter easily remained in sand beds. Furthermore, it was found that mud deposited in the pores as clusters rather than being separately adsorbed onto the surface of soil particles.     

Finite element modelling of local scour below a pipeline under steady currents

Local scour has been identified as the main factor that causes failures of structures in offshore engineering. Numerous research efforts have been devoted to local scour around offshore pipelines in the past. In this paper, a finite element numerical model is established for simulating local scour below offshore pipelines in steady currents. The flow is simulated by solving the unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations with a standard k ? ? turbulent model closure. A sand slide scheme is proposed for the scour calculation, and bed load is considered in the proposed scour model. To account for changes in bed level, the moving mesh method is adopted to capture the water–sediment interface (bed), and the change of bed level is calculated by solving Exner–Polya equation. All the equations are discretised within the two-step Taylor–Galerkin algorithm in this paper. It is found that the sand slide model works well for the simulation of the scour, and the numerical results are shown to be in good agreement with the available experimental data.     

Modeling of Wormhole Growth in Cold Production

Cold production is a non-thermal process in which sand is intentionally produced with the oil in order to enhance oil recovery. Two experiments were performed to investigate the effect of producing large quantities of sand on the overall permeability of a formation. A large high porosity channel (wormhole) was observed in both experiments. A model of wormhole growth was successfully tested in two sand production experiments simulating the growth of a wormhole from a perforation in a vertical well. The produced volumes of oil, sand and gas, the pressure distribution along the pack and the final length of the wormholes were well predicted. The two sand packs had significantly different cohesive strengths. The strength of the sand did not have a significant effect on the growth of the wormholes. The formation of tensile failure bands at the wormhole surface, as observed in the experiments, may weaken the sand and allow it to be fluidized more easily. This weakening effect would explain the lower pressure gradients calculated at the surface of the wormhole while it developed compared to the critical pressure gradient for sand production predicted by Bratli and Risnes (1981).     

Extrudate Trilobe Catalysts and Loading Effects on Pressure Drop and Dynamic Liquid Holdup in Porous Media of Trickle Bed Reactors

The hydrodynamics of concurrent gas-liquid downflow through a porous media of fixed bed reactor has been studied experimentally in a range of trickling flow rates. A pilot bed is packed with industrial spherical and extrudate trilobe catalysts. The industrial trilobe catalysts are packed in a bed using two different methods: random close or dense packing and random sock packing. The experiments are performed for single phase in the cases of wet and dry packed beds and for two-phase flow conditions. The comparisons of pressure drops as well as liquid holdup are carried out for the above three different porous media, random close, dense packing and random sock packing. It is shown that the pressure drop of the dense loaded bed is higher than that of spherical particles which have approximately the same porosity. The results also revealed that the bed porosity, shape and contact points of the loaded catalyst have significant effects on the dynamic liquid holdup of the TBRs. Finally, a new correlation was developed for dynamic liquid holdup and pressure drop calculation for trilobe dense and sock catalyst beds and beds which are loaded with spherical particles.     

The loss of stability of laminar flow in open channel and the mechanism of sand ripple formation

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Minimum fluidization velocities for supercritical water fluidized bed within the range of 633–693 K and 23–27 MPa

Supercritical water fluidized bed is a new reactor concept for biomass gasification. In this paper, an experimental study on the hydrodynamics of a supercritical water fluidized bed was conducted. The frictional pressure drops of a fixed bed and a fluidized bed were measured for a temperature ranging from 633 to 693 K and pressure ranging from 23 to 27 MPa. The results show that the Ergun formula for calculating the frictional pressure drop of a fixed bed can still be applied in supercritical water conditions. The average deviation between Ergun formula and experiment results is 13.3%. A predicting correlation for the minimum fluidization velocity in a supercritical water fluidized bed was obtained based on the experimental results of a fixed bed and the fluidized bed pressure drop. The average error between the correlation and experiment results was about 3.1%. The results in this paper are useful for the design of SCW fluidized bed.     

海洋天然气水合物降压开采地层井壁力学稳定性分析

降压开采天然气水合物使其分解会导致储层孔隙度、渗透率、孔隙压力和岩层骨架有效应力发生改变, 同时降低沉积物的胶结程度, 使地层的抗剪强度和承载能力降低, 从而引起井壁失稳、海底滑坡、海底面沉降等工程问题. 为此, 在地下多相非等温数值模拟软件TOUGH+Hydrate框架内, 基于扩展的三维Biot固结理论, 考虑水合物分解相变、传热(T)、流动(H)、岩土体变形(M)等过程及其相互耦合作用, 建立了新的水合物开采传热-流动-力学(THM)耦合数学模型, 并开发有限元程序对其进行数值求解. 以中国南海神狐海域GMGS1航次SH2站位水合物储层条件为研究对象, 构建了垂直井降压开采THM耦合地层井壁稳定性分析模型, 预测了水合物开采过程中储层温-压-力场和水合物分解区的演化规律, 揭示了地层优势出砂区域和海底面沉降趋势. 结果表明: 储层降压导致地层有效应力增大, 进而引起井周地层发生沉降, 且地层的沉降主要发生在降压开采前期, 最大沉降位置位于井壁周围, 向储层内部延伸地层沉降量快速减小; 水合物分解导致井周地层力学强度降低, 加剧了储层的沉降; 井筒降压造成射孔段井壁应力集中最为明显, 从而造成井壁破坏的潜在风险, 这些区域正是水合物开采出砂防治的关键区域.      

Phase holdups in three-phase fluidized beds in the presence of disc promoter

Three-phase fluidized beds are found to have wide applications in process industries. The present investigation essentially comprises of the studies on gas holdup, liquid holdup and bed porosity in three-phase fluidized beds with coaxially placed disc promoter. Holdup data were obtained from bed expansion and pressure drop measurements. Analysis of the data was done to elucidate the effects of dynamic and geometric parameters on gas holdup, liquid holdup and bed porosity. Data were correlated and useful equations were obtained from empirical modeling.     

Effects of initial static bed height on fractional conversion and bed pressure drop in tapered-in and tapered-out fluidized bed reactors

In this article, a standard 2D Two-Fluid Model (TFM) closed by the kinetic theory of granular flow (KTGF) has been applied to simulate the behavior of tapered-in and tapered-out fluidized bed reactors. In this regard, two types of chemical reactions with gas volume reduction and increase were considered to investigate the effects of initial static bed height on the fractional conversion and bed pressure drop. To validate the CFD model predictions, the results of hydrodynamic simulations concerning bed pressure drop and bed expansion ratio were compared against experimental data reported in the literature and excellent agreement was observed. The obtained simulation results clearly indicate that there is an appropriate static bed height in a tapered-in reactor in which the fractional conversion becomes maximum at this height; whereas variations of static bed height in a tapered-out reactor have insignificant influences on the fractional conversion. Moreover, it was found that the residence time, temperature, and intensity of turbulence of the gas phase are three important factors affecting the fractional conversion in tapered fluidized bed reactors. In addition, it was observed that increasing the static bed height increases the bed pressure drop for both the tapered-in and tapered-out fluidized bed reactors.     

Investigation of Groundwater Contaminant Discharge into Tidally Influenced Surface-Water Bodies: Experimental Results

An investigation of the effect of tidally influenced water elevations on the concentration of groundwater contaminants discharging to a surface-water body is studied using a one-dimensional homogeneous sand column. A constant water level is imposed upstream, and the downstream water level is controlled by a wave generator that controls the hydraulic head to mimic a 12-h tidal fluctuation. The experimental results demonstrate that the tidal fluctuations in the downstream reservoir result in a decrease in average contaminant concentration at the point of discharge to the tidally influenced surface-water body. The further upstream an observation well is located, the smaller the amplitude of the concentration oscillation. Fourier analysis suggests that the dominant frequency of the pressure at different locations along the length of the column is identically two cycles per day and that the concentration data have a dominant frequency of two cycles per day, but also exhibit harmonics.     

Effect of sediment particle size on bed wavelength in closed conduits

The problem of the stability of the sand bed surface in a rectangular closed conduit with respect to spatially one-dimensional perturbations is formulated. The bed-form stability problem is solved using an analytical formula of bed load which takes into account the effect of bottom pressure on bed-load transport. An analytical dependence of the bed wavelength on hydrodynamic flow parameters and sediment particle diameter is obtained and compared with experimental data.     

二维喷动床CFD-DEM模拟中曳力模型的影响

CFD-DEM已经广泛应用到喷动床的研究中,其模拟的准确性与用于处理颗粒-流体相互作用的曳力模型密切相关。为了探究不同曳力模型对喷动床CFD-DEM模拟结果的影响,基于非结构化网格的喷动床仿真,使用7个曳力模型分别对锥底喷动床内气固两相运动进行了数值模拟。综合床层压降、喷动高度和颗粒速度特性三个方面,Wen-Yu模型和Gibilaro模型预测的气固两相运动最剧烈,其次是Di Felice模型、Syamlal-O’Brien模型、Gidaspow模型和Huilin-Gidaspow模型,BVK模型预测的气固两相运动最平缓。由于模拟的气固两相体系属于密相体系,Huilin-Gidaspow模型的光滑过渡函数没有产生效果,所以Gidaspow模型和Huilin-Gidaspow模型在各个方面的预测结果基本一致。     

Natural Low-Frequency Riblets

A turbulent flow at modest Reynolds numbers (26,000–32,000, as defined in the text) over flat erodible sandy beds was investigated. The beds were composed of sand grains of uniform size with a diameter smaller than the viscous sublayer of the flow. When a modest sand transport (1.2 × 10-3–8.5 × 10-3 g/s·cm) was present, the near-wall coherent structures of the flow produced a bed form with a streaky longitudinal pattern. This pattern had a lateral spacing of about 100 viscous units and had less drag than a flat wall.The mechanism causing the drag reduction is due to a low-frequency riblet pattern which allows the flow to sustain higher wall shear stresses without additional erosion. That means during the riblet regime the sediment transport remains quasi-constant.The formation of the sand streaks as well as the drag reducing mechanism are discussed.