Steady drainage in emulsions: corrections for surface Plateau borders and a model for high aqueous volume fraction

We compare extensive experimental results for the gravity-driven steady drainage of oil-in-water emulsions with two theoretical predictions, both based on the assumption of Poiseuille flow. The first is from standard foam drainage theory, applicable at low aqueous volume fractions, for which a correction is derived to account for the effects of the confinement of the emulsion. The second arises from considering the permeability of a model porous medium consisting of solid sphere packings, applicable at higher aqueous volume fractions. We find quantitative agreement between experiment and the foam drainage theory at low aqueous volume fractions. At higher aqueous volume fractions, the reduced flow rate calculated from the permeability theory approaches the master curve of the experimental data. Our experimental data demonstrates the analogy between the problem of electrical flow and liquid flow through foams and emulsions.     

Dual-modality and dual-energy gamma ray densitometry of petroleum products using an artificial neural network

The prediction of volume fractions in order to measure the multiphase flow rate is a very important issue and is the key parameter of multi-phase flow meters (MPFMs). Currently, the gamma ray attenuation technique is known as one of the most precise methods for obtaining volume fractions. The gamma ray attenuation technique is based on the mass attenuation coefficient, which is sensitive to density changes; density is sensitive in turn to temperature and pressure fluctuations. Therefore, MPFM efficiency depends strongly on environmental conditions. The conventional solution to this problem is the periodical recalibration of MPFMs, which is a demanding task. In this study, a method based on dual-modality densitometry and artificial intelligence (AI) is presented, which offers the advantage of the measurement of the oil–gas–water volume fractions independent of density changes. For this purpose, several experiments were carried out and used to validate simulated dual modality densitometry results. The reference density point was established at a temperature of 20 °C and pressure of 1 bar. To cover the full range of likely density fluctuations, four additional density sets were defined (at changes of ±4% and ±8% from the reference point). An annular regime with different percentages of oil, gas and water at different densities was simulated. Four features were extracted from the transmission and scattered detectors and were applied to the artificial neural network (ANN) as inputs. The input parameters included the ²⁴¹Am full energy peak, ¹³⁷Cs Compton edge, ¹³⁷Cs full energy peak and total scattered count, and the outputs were the oil and air percentages. A multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural network was used to predict the volume fraction independent of the oil and water density changes. The obtained results show that the proposed ANN model achieved good agreement with the real data, with an estimated root mean square error (RMSE) of less than 3.     

颗粒流的动力学模型和实验研究进展

首先叙述了颗粒流研究的背景和基本概念,接着概述了颗粒流动力学研究的三种基本数学力学模型:颗粒动理论(kinetic theory)模型、摩擦塑性模型和离散元模拟模型.介绍了它们的基本原理,并分析了各个模型的优缺点和适用范围.随之,对颗粒流的实验研究情况作了简要的介绍,列举了研究中几种常用的试验方法和观测手段,以及观测到的一些典型现象.最后,我们简述了颗粒流研究的主要困难,并提出了某些有待解决的研究课题.      

Instability of two-phase flows: A lower bound on the dimension of the global attractor of the Cahn-Hilliard-Navier-Stokes system

We consider a model for the flow of a mixture of two viscous and incompressible fluids in a two or three dimensional channel-like domain. The model consists of the Navier-Stokes equations governing the fluid velocity coupled with a convective Cahn-Hilliard equation for the relative density of atoms of one of the fluids. We prove the instability of certain stationary solutions for such a system endowed with periodic boundary conditions on elongated domains (0,2π/α₀)×(0,2π) or (0,2π/α₀)×(0,2π)×(0,2π/β₀) for a special class of periodic body forces, provided that α₀ and β₀ are small enough. As a consequence, we deduce a lower bound for the Hausdorff dimension of the global attractor.     

Dynamics of the swollen lamellar phase

We investigate the dynamical behavior of lamellar phases in ternary amphiphilic systems of water, oil and amphiphile. The interaction between the amphiphilic monolayers is described by the steric interaction due to thermal fluctuations for uncharged, and by electrostatic interactions for charged systems. The dynamics of the system is determined by the hydrodynamics of the fluid layers. The basic parameters of our model are the viscosities of the two solvents, the average thicknesses of the oil and water layers, and the bending rigidity. The model allows to consider different monolayer interactions across the oil and water layers. Relaxation rates are calculated for arbitrary wave vectors parallel and perpendicular to the average monolayer plane. We find that there is a quite complex crossover behavior from a law for small parallel wave vectors to a law for large . We discuss the relevance of our result for the interpretation of dynamic light-scattering and neutron-spin-echo experiments for these systems. Received 7 December 1999     

New Algorithm for Computing LQ Suboptimal Output Feedback Gains of Decentralized Control Systems

In this paper, the problem of computing the suboptimal output feedback gains of decentralized control systems is investigated. First, the problem is formulated. Then, the gradient matrices based on the index function are derived and a new algorithm is established based on some nice properties. This algorithm shows that a suboptimal gain can be computed by solving several ordinary differential equations (ODEs). In order to find an initial condition for the ODEs, an algorithm for finding a stabilizing output feedback gain is exploited, and the convergence of this algorithm is discussed. Finally, an example is given to illustrate the proposed algorithm.     

Influence of the surface deformability and variable viscosity on buoyant - thermocapillary instability in a liquid layer

The primary stationary and oscillatory Bénard-Marangoni instability is investigated in a fluid layer of infinite horizontal extent, bounded below by a rigid plane and above by a deformable upper surface, subjected to a vertical temperature gradient. Since the viscosity is temperature-dependent the consequences of relaxing Oberbeck-Boussinesq approximation and free surface deformability are theoretically examined by means of small disturbance analysis. The problem has been solved numerically by the Taylor series expansion method. The results obtained confirm that when the free surface is undeformable, stationary convection develops in the form of polygonal cells, and oscillatory motion cannot be detected. When the surface deformability is considered, stationary convection sets in, either as a short-wavelength hexagonal instability or as a long-wavelengh mode or as both, and oscillatory convection is also possible. The stability threshold for the short-wavelength mode depends mainly on the viscosity variation while the long-wavelength mode is determined by the surface deformation. Numerically, it is found that the neutral oscillatory Marangoni numbers are only negative. When a variable-viscosity model is used the theoretical and experimental results are in better agreement. Received 15 May 1997     

Effect of parametric modulation on pattern formation in reaction diffusion systems

Reaction diffusion systems can exhibite both spatial and temporal patterns. We show that the effect of spatial variation of the removal rate can have significant effect on the stability boundaries. In particular there can be a case of parametric resonance. Received 11 March 1998     

Precise measurement and control of the pressure-driven flows for microfluidic systems

The pressure-driven device is designed and the flow rates of the microfluidic systems can be supplied by the pressure-driven flows, which can significantly reduce the flow-rate fluctuations coming from the pump source. For pressure-driven flows, the flow rates of the fluids can be predicted by measuring the pressure drop along a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) tubing. Especially, by varying the geometrical parameters of the PTFE tubing, the predicted flow rates of the fluids are compared with the experimental measurements, and the testing precision of the pressure-driven flows can be obtained. Meanwhile, the dynamic characteristics of the open-loop and closed-loop control pressure-driven device are comparatively studied. Particularly, a proportional and integral (PI) controller is integrated with the closed-loop control pressure-driven device, and the effects of the parameters of the PI controller on the dynamic characteristics of the pressure-driven devices are mainly discussed. Most importantly, by improving the dynamic characteristics of the pressure-driven devices, precise measurement and control of the pressure-driven flows can be achieved for microfluidic systems.