Impact of Relaxation of Low-Sulfate Seawater Parameters on Scaling Risk

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Mandhr Al Kalbani ◽  
Hatem Al Shabibi ◽  
Oleg Ishkov ◽  
Duarte Silva ◽  
Eric Mackay ◽  
...  

Summary Injection of low-sulfate seawater (LSSW) instead of untreated full-sulfate seawater (FSSW) is widely used to mitigate barium sulfate scaling risk at the production wells. LSSW injection may no longer be required when the barium concentrations in the produced water drop below a certain threshold. Such a trigger value could be estimated from the barium sulfate precipitation tendency. Relaxation of requirements for the sulfate reduction plant (SRP) can significantly reduce operational costs. This study investigates the impact of several parameters on the timing and degree of relaxation of the output sulfate concentration by the SRP. Finally, the optimal switching strategy is proposed for a field case. The strategy for switching from LSSW to FSSW (e.g., time and method; direct or gradual increase in the sulfate concentration) was initially investigated using generic 2D areal and vertical models. The sensitivity study included the impact of reservoir heterogeneity and the initial barium and sulfate ion concentrations. Findings were later applied on a full-field reservoir simulation model followed by a mineral scale prediction software to investigate the specific switching strategy for a field that has multiple wells and significantly more complex heterogeneity. The results show that barium concentrations in the formation brine affect the choice of switching time more than the output sulfate concentration produced by the SRP. The degree of heterogeneity around the producers also has a significant impact on the switching time. Another parameter is the contrast in the permeability between layers; higher contrast allows a longer period of coproduction of the scaling ions and thus delays the switching time. In the field case, switching to FSSW at early times allows higher consumption of barium ions because of its in-situ precipitation. Barium is no longer a limiting ion, and so a higher degree of deep reservoir precipitation reduces the requirement for prolonged LSSW injection. Another strategy is a gradual relaxation of LSSW output, which allows even earlier buildup of the injected sulfate concentration compared with the direct FSSW switch. The study investigates the reservoir parameters that affect sulfate relaxation of LSSW injection for a field. After the proposed workflow, the optimal relaxation strategy can be designed for other field cases.

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 463
Author(s):  
Gopinathan R. Abhijith ◽  
Leonid Kadinski ◽  
Avi Ostfeld

The formation of bacterial regrowth and disinfection by-products is ubiquitous in chlorinated water distribution systems (WDSs) operated with organic loads. A generic, easy-to-use mechanistic model describing the fundamental processes governing the interrelationship between chlorine, total organic carbon (TOC), and bacteria to analyze the spatiotemporal water quality variations in WDSs was developed using EPANET-MSX. The representation of multispecies reactions was simplified to minimize the interdependent model parameters. The physicochemical/biological processes that cannot be experimentally determined were neglected. The effects of source water characteristics and water residence time on controlling bacterial regrowth and Trihalomethane (THM) formation in two well-tested systems under chlorinated and non-chlorinated conditions were analyzed by applying the model. The results established that a 100% increase in the free chlorine concentration and a 50% reduction in the TOC at the source effectuated a 5.87 log scale decrement in the bacteriological activity at the expense of a 60% increase in THM formation. The sensitivity study showed the impact of the operating conditions and the network characteristics in determining parameter sensitivities to model outputs. The maximum specific growth rate constant for bulk phase bacteria was found to be the most sensitive parameter to the predicted bacterial regrowth.


Crystals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 691
Author(s):  
Yugang Zhao ◽  
Zichao Zuo ◽  
Haibo Tang ◽  
Xin Zhang

Icing/snowing/frosting is ubiquitous in nature and industrial processes, and the accretion of ice mostly leads to catastrophic consequences. The existing understanding of icing is still limited, particularly for aircraft icing, where direct observation of the freezing dynamics is inaccessible. In this work, we investigate experimentally the impact and freezing of a water drop onto the supercooled substrate at extremely low vapor pressure, to mimic an aircraft passing through clouds at a relatively high altitude, engendering icing upon collisions with pendant drops. Special attention is focused on the ice coverage induced by an impinging drop, from the perimeter pointing outward along the radial direction. We observed two freezing regimes: (I) spread-recoil-freeze at the substrate temperature of Ts = −15.4 ± 0.2 °C and (II) spread (incomplete)-freeze at the substrate temperature of Ts = −22.1 ± 0.2 °C. The ice coverage is approximately one order of magnitude larger than the frozen drop itself, and counterintuitively, larger supercooling yields smaller ice coverage in the range of interest. We attribute the variation of ice coverage to the kinetics of vapor diffusion in the two regimes. This fundamental understanding benefits the design of new anti-icing technologies for aircraft.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 1602
Author(s):  
Ángel Molina-Viedma ◽  
Elías López-Alba ◽  
Luis Felipe-Sesé ◽  
Francisco Díaz

Experimental characterization and validation of skin components in aircraft entails multiple evaluations (structural, aerodynamic, acoustic, etc.) and expensive campaigns. They require different rigs and equipment to perform the necessary tests. Two of the main dynamic characterizations include the energy absorption under impact forcing and the identification of modal parameters through the vibration response under any broadband excitation, which also includes impacts. This work exploits the response of a stiffened aircraft composite panel submitted to a multi-impact excitation, which is intended for impact and energy absorption analysis. Based on the high stiffness of composite materials, the study worked under the assumption that the global response to the multi-impact excitation is linear with small strains, neglecting the nonlinear behavior produced by local damage generation. Then, modal identification could be performed. The vibration after the impact was measured by high-speed 3D digital image correlation and employed for full-field operational modal analysis. Multiple modes were characterized in a wide spectrum, exploiting the advantages of the full-field noninvasive techniques. These results described a consistent modal behavior of the panel along with good indicators of mode separation given by the auto modal assurance criterion (Auto-MAC). Hence, it illustrates the possibility of performing these dynamic characterizations in a single test, offering additional information while reducing time and investment during the validation of these structures.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 1935-1949 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Kylling ◽  
N. Kristiansen ◽  
A. Stohl ◽  
R. Buras-Schnell ◽  
C. Emde ◽  
...  

Abstract. Volcanic ash is commonly observed by infrared detectors on board Earth-orbiting satellites. In the presence of ice and/or liquid-water clouds, the detected volcanic ash signature may be altered. In this paper the sensitivity of detection and retrieval of volcanic ash to the presence of ice and liquid-water clouds was quantified by simulating synthetic equivalents to satellite infrared images with a 3-D radiative transfer model. The sensitivity study was made for the two recent eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull (2010) and Grímsvötn (2011) using realistic water and ice clouds and volcanic ash clouds. The water and ice clouds were taken from European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) analysis data and the volcanic ash cloud fields from simulations by the Lagrangian particle dispersion model FLEXPART. The radiative transfer simulations were made both with and without ice and liquid-water clouds for the geometry and channels of the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI). The synthetic SEVIRI images were used as input to standard reverse absorption ash detection and retrieval methods. Ice and liquid-water clouds were on average found to reduce the number of detected ash-affected pixels by 6–12%. However, the effect was highly variable and for individual scenes up to 40% of pixels with mass loading >0.2 g m−2 could not be detected due to the presence of water and ice clouds. For coincident pixels, i.e. pixels where ash was both present in the FLEXPART (hereafter referred to as "Flexpart") simulation and detected by the algorithm, the presence of clouds overall increased the retrieved mean mass loading for the Eyjafjallajökull (2010) eruption by about 13%, while for the Grímsvötn (2011) eruption ash-mass loadings the effect was a 4% decrease of the retrieved ash-mass loading. However, larger differences were seen between scenes (standard deviations of ±30 and ±20% for Eyjafjallajökull and Grímsvötn, respectively) and even larger ones within scenes. The impact of ice and liquid-water clouds on the detection and retrieval of volcanic ash, implies that to fully appreciate the location and amount of ash, hyperspectral and spectral band measurements by satellite instruments should be combined with ash dispersion modelling.


2001 ◽  
Vol 427 ◽  
pp. 73-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
LIOW JONG LENG

The impact of a spherical water drop onto a water surface has been studied experimentally with the aid of a 35 mm drum camera giving high-resolution images that provided qualitative and quantitative data on the phenomena. Scaling laws for the time to reach maximum cavity sizes have been derived and provide a good fit to the experimental results. Transitions between the regimes for coalescence-only, the formation of a high-speed jet and bubble entrapment have been delineated. The high-speed jet was found to occur without bubble entrapment. This was caused by the rapid retraction of the trough formed by a capillary wave converging to the centre of the cavity base. The converging capillary wave has a profile similar to a Crapper wave. A plot showing the different regimes of cavity and impact drop behaviour in the Weber–Froude number-plane has been constructed for Fr and We less than 1000.


An experiment is described in which pairs of water drops of different size were caused to collide during free fall at a velocity equal to the difference of their terminal velocities in still air. The collision parameters of trajectory, drop size, and drop charge were controlled with precision, and impacts of a particular kind could be reproduced indefinitely. By using synchronized flash photography, well in excess of 30000 measurements were taken from more than 10000 frames of film of the resulting behaviour of the water-drop pairs. Data are discussed in terms of an impact parameter, X which defines the relative trajectory of the drops in the centre-of-mass frame, and three energy parameters e C , e R and e T which delineate the properties electrostatic energy, rotational energy, and total energy of the two-drop system before impact. Input parameters were confined to values appropriate to natural rainfall. After collision four basic types of rotation occurred, the particular kind of rotation depending upon X , e C , e R and e T . Measured rates of rotation were compared with that to be expected from a simple model of inelastic collision between solid spheres and showed a marked resemblance. Distributions of mass after collision were compared with a model based upon a bimodal Gaussian distribution to good effect. In addition, frequency distributions of the number of drop products resulting from a given collision were prepared showing the controlling influence of the impact parameter, X , and the effect of varying drop charge. Relations were also established between statistical values for the coalescence efficiency of a given drop pair and the input parameters; however, while all results were consistent and reproducible, the effect of drop charge could not be demonstrated by a simple model.


SPE Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Yanqing Wang ◽  
Xiang Li ◽  
Jun Lu

Summary Seawater breakthrough percentage monitoring is critical for offshore oil reservoirs because seawater fraction is an important parameter for estimating the severity of many flow assurance issues caused by seawater injection and further developing effective strategies to mitigate the impact of those issues on production. The validation of using natural ions as a tracer to calculate the seawater fraction was investigated systematically by studying the natural chemical composition evolution in porous media using coreflood tests and static bottle tests. The applicable range of ions was discussed based on the interaction between ion and rock. The barium sulfate reactive model was improved by integrating interaction between ions and rock as well as fluid flow effect. The results indicate that chloride and sodium interact with rock, but the influence of the interaction can be minimized to a negligible level because of the high concentrations of chloride and sodium. Thus, chloride and sodium can be used as conservative tracers during the seawater flooding process. However, adsorption/desorption may have a large influence on chloride and sodium concentrations under the scenario that both injection water and formation water have low chloride and sodium content. Bromide shows negligible interaction with rock even at low concentrations and can be regarded as being conservative. The application of a barium and sulfate reaction model in coreflood tests does not work as well as in bottle tests because fluid flow in porous media and ion interaction with rock is not taken into account. Although sulfate and barium adsorption on clay is small, it should not be neglected. The barium sulfate reaction model was improved based on the simulation of ion transport in porous media. Cations (magnesium, calcium, and potassium) are involved in the complicated cation-exchange process, which causes large deviation. Therefore, magnesium, calcium, and potassium are not recommended to calculate seawater fraction. Boron, which exists as anions in formation water and is used as a conservative tracer, has significant interactions with core matrix, and using boron in an ion tracking method directly can significantly underestimate the seawater fraction. The results give guidelines on selecting suitable ions as tracers to determine seawater breakthrough percentages under different production scenarios.


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdelrahman Kotb ◽  
Tariq Almubarak ◽  
Hisham A. Nasr-El-Din

Abstract Slickwater fracturing has been phenomenally successful in unconventional shale formations due to their unique geomechanical properties. Nevertheless, these treatments consume large volumes of water. On average, hydraulic fracturing treatments use up to 13,000,000 gallons of water in unconventional wells. In an effort to reduce the use of freshwater, research has focused on developing friction reducers (FR) that can be used in high salinity brines such as seawater and produced water. However, commonly used friction reducers precipitate in high salinity brine, lose their friction reduction properties, and cause severe formation damage to the proppant pack. Consequently, this work proposes the use of common surfactants to aid the FR system and achieve salt tolerance at water salinity up to 230,000 ppm. This paper will (a) evaluate five surfactants for use in high salinity FR systems, (b) evaluate the rheological properties of these systems, and (c) evaluate the damage generated from using these systems. Four types of tests were conducted to analyze the performance of the new FR at high salinity brine. These are (a) rheology, (b) static proppant settling, (c) breakability, and (d) coreflood tests. Surfactants with ethylene oxide chain lengths ranging from 6 to 12 were incorporated in the tests. Rheology tests were done at temperatures up to 150°F to evaluate the FR at shear rates between 40-1000 s-1. Proppant settling tests were performed to investigate the proppant carrying capacity of the new FR system. Breakability and coreflood tests were conducted to study the potential damage caused by the proposed systems. Rheology tests showed that using surfactants with high ethylene oxide chain length (>8) improved the performance of the FR at water salinity up to 230,000 ppm. Anionic surfactants performed better than cationic surfactants in improving FR performance. The ammonium persulfate was used as a breaker and showed effectiveness with the proposed formula. Finally, the retained permeability after 12 hours of injecting the FR was over 95%. This shows that after using this system, the productivity of the formation is minimally affected by the new FR system. This research provides the first guide on studying the impact of using different ethylene oxide chain lengths of surfactants in developing new FR systems that can perform well in a high salinity environment. Given the economic and environmental benefits of reusing produced water, this new system can save costs that were previously spent on water treatments.


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