Studies on Fluorocarbon Elastomer Nanocomposites for Sealing Applications

The usage of seals in several applications like aircraft engines is mostly made of Fluorocarbon (FKM) elastomer. They are coloured products that enable easier identification based on the applications. In such seals, fillers like carbon black cannot be added to reinforce and improvise the mechanical properties since carbon black does not make it possible to add colours. The properties after ageing are also very critical in sealing application, and they must also be improved. Also, Nanocomposites are the modern and growing trends in the field of polymers that show enormous changes in the properties of the polymers without affecting their basic properties. So, the need for improvisation of FKM seals and the concept of Nanocomposites can be merged to form FKM Nanocomposites with Nano clay and Nano silica as the fillers. The objective of this project is to improve the mechanical properties, better retention of properties after ageing and after fluid interaction of the FKM seals with the aid of Nanofillers. Different proportions of FKM nanocomposites were prepared using modified Nano Kaolin Clay & modified Montmorillonite clay (Cloisite grades). Various mechanical properties like tensile strength, tensile modulus, elongation at break, compression set and tear strength etc., were studied. The test results have shown good improvements while increasing the filler loading. This is helpful to manufacture seals of desired colours thereby avoiding the difficulties faced in the carbon black-filled FKM compounds.

Controls on Barite Mineralization in a Major Intracontinental Shear Zone: Carboniferous of the Cobequid Highlands, Nova Scotia

Prominent veins of late Carboniferous barite, associated with fluorite and calcite, outcrop close to older granite plutons along an intracontinental shear zone that was active throughout the Carboniferous in southeastern Canada. Some barite is stratigraphically constrained to younger than 315 Ma and final mineralization is constrained by a published Rb–Sr isochron of 300 ± 6 Ma. Barite occurrences in the Carboniferous basins of central Nova Scotia, 50 km to the south, are synchronous with or post-date ankerite-siderite-magnetite-pyrolusite and Pb-Zn mineralization, which was facilitated by fluid interaction with thick evaporites. This study aims to determine controls on the distribution of barite in the shear zone, from field relationships, vein petrography and isotope geochemistry of minerals. The isotope chemistry of shear zone barite is similar to that occurring in Pb-Zn-Mn-Ba mineralization to the south, suggesting a common origin. Veins of barite, associated with fluorite, represent the youngest and regionally coolest phase of a 70 Ma history of Carboniferous mineralized veins along the Minas Fault Zone. Their prominence close to granite plutons reflects brittle deformation of the deeply-rooted granites in a complexly deforming fault zone, but the origin of abundant F remains uncertain.

Evaluation of selected salts for potential application for optimized salinity water flooding in Niger Delta crude oil-rock systems: A laboratory approach

This work has assessed the comparative performance of four salts (NaCl, K2SO4, CaCl2, and MgSO4) in the optimized salinity water flooding mode. This was done by carrying out core flooding tests using crude oil, brines and cores sourced from a Niger Delta field. Inter-facial Tension tests were also performed on each crude brine system to understand the specific role of fluid-fluid interaction. The results obtained from the study are quite interesting as additional recovery ranging from 5–26% were obtained in the secondary and tertiary mode.

Interaction Analysis of Simple form Objects with Fluid and Control Optimization

Fluid-rigid body interaction is an age-old phenomenon, but interestingly, a good approximated solution for the phenomenon pertaining to non-stationary body-fluid interaction is still non-existent. The solution is much more complicated due to huge system of simultaneous partial differential equations that are framed from multi-degrees of freedom, all elements in the spatial domain coupled together between all time steps. Additionally, when considering the spatial aspects of solving the system of partial differential equations, there arise a range of complexities from the type of solution technique (finite-differences, finite-volume, finite-element) and also from meshing techniques (moving, structured or unstructured). Even though advanced commercial fluid-structure interaction solvers are available, they are limited to simple objects and require frequent remeshing techniques that are time consuming and computationally expensive. The promotion work specifically focuses solely on rigid body-fluid (air) interaction and does not consider flow reattachment or flow separation phenomenon offering an alternative approach to study the interaction phenomenon and its advantages. The basic idea of the approximated theory in the current work is to have a simplified approach through a straightforward mathematical model without considering the viscous nature of fluid medium (air). Therefore, this is an approximate theory for non-stationary body and fluid interaction phenomenon considering inputs (post-processing results) from stationary rigid body-fluid interaction performed in ANSYS Fluent (2D and 3D) where the steady state RANS equation is solved with the help of turbulence model. The concept discussed in the work will offer an alternative approach for ‘space-time’ programming techniques and also help to solve the engineering tasks of optimization and synthesis for simple form objects without requiring huge computational efforts. A new world of science for autonomous robots (underwater robotic fish with single and dual tail actuator) is explored where in an on-board power pack technique (energy scavenging from surrounding medium) is proposed that purely based on the fluid and rigid body interaction phenomenon is analysed. Experiments on simple form objects were performed in ARMFIELD wind tunnel, available at Riga Technical University, at a constant speed of 10 m/s and validated with the computer program ANSYS Fluent (in 3D). All the latest techniques, advantages and importance related to fluid-structure interaction phenomenon are summarized in the literature review section through various databases available over internet.