Oil Spill Dispersant Effectiveness Protocol. I: Impact of Operational Variables

The current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency protocol for testing the effectiveness of dispersants, the swirling flask test, has been found to give widely varying results in the hands of different testing laboratories. The sources of the ambiguities in the test were determined by considering several options in a rigorous systematic fashion. Options considered were variability among three operators and the variability and limitations of three analytical instruments in establishing a calibration curve for oil/dispersant mixtures. Other options included flask type, impact of operational variables (rotational speed, mixing time, settling time, and oil:dispersant ratio), development of a revised procedure for dispersant effectiveness, reproducibility and repeatability of the revised procedure, and development of selection criteria for screening of dispersants. A redesign of the test flask, which is characterized by having baffles with a stopcock at the bottom for sample collection, was deemed necessary to accomplish reproducibility within operator and between operators. The results indicated that the baffled flask provided a total coefficient of variation (variations within operator and between operators) less than 11% compared to above 100% in some cases for the swirling flask.     

Oil Spill Dispersant Effectiveness Protocol. II: Performance of Revised Protocol

The current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) protocol for testing the effectiveness of dispersants for use in treating oil spills on the open water, the swirling flask test (SFT), has been found to give widely varying results in the hands of different testing laboratories. Part I addressed the sources of the ambiguities in the EPA SFT and the development of a new test referred to as the baffled flask test (BFT). In this part of the series, further experiments were conducted for estimating the repeatability of three operators in determining the effectiveness of 18 dispersants by both the EPA SFT and the BFT methods. Overall statistical analysis of the results indicated that the coefficient of variation by the BFT was only 7.8% compared to 21.9% for the EPA SFT. The mean percent effectiveness of the EPA SFT was only 19.7% as compared to 64.6% for the BFT. Proposed selection criteria for screening of dispersants for listing on the National Contingency Plan Product Schedule have been developed.     

The tribological performance of DLC coatings under oil-lubricated fretting conditions

Whether or not the process of fretting occurs is to a large extent dependent on the coefficient of friction, because the coefficient of friction directly affects the amount of shear stress. As a result, the key factor when it comes to reducing the amount of fretting damage is to reduce the coefficient of friction. Various surface coatings, and especially hard, diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings, are known to be able to produce surfaces with a low level of friction. Despite some such attempts in the past, which did not result in major improvements, the developments and improvements in DLC coatings in recent years suggest the need for a re-evaluation of these coatings for fretting applications. Another way to reduce the amount of friction in mechanical components is to apply lubricants, and recent studies on the lubrication of DLC coatings suggest that this combination could be very successful in preventing failures under boundary-lubrication conditions. Therefore, in this work we present the results of friction and wear measurements from three types of fretting contacts: steel/steel, steel/DLC and DLC/DLC. Boundary oil-lubrication conditions were investigated and a wide range of displacement amplitudes, i.e., from 25 to 500 μm, were selected to assess the fretting and sliding behaviours. The results show a significant difference between the fretting and sliding regimes. In the fretting regime, the DLC-containing contacts, and especially the self-mated DLC/DLC contacts, performed much better than the steel/steel contacts, and significantly reduced both the wear (a 3–10 times reduction with steel/DLC and DLC/DLC) and the friction (a more-than-two-times reduction with DLC/DLC). In the sliding regime, the lubrication effects governed the tribological performance, making the results for all three material combinations very similar.     

Stress distribution of coated film with a range of coated film thickness and elastic properties under a single EHL operating condition

In recent years, the techniques improving sliding performances have progressed by using coated films possessing superior tribological properties, to reduce the failures of the mechanical elements. Those techniques are often used under severe conditions such as elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL). In this paper, numerical three-dimensional analysis of the maximum shear stress applied into the coated film and substrate under a single EHL operating condition was performed with a range of coated film thickness and elastic properties. The strength of coated film as one of those techniques was evaluated numerically, resulting in an optimum design of coated film. As a result, coated films with a larger value of thickness and a smaller modulus of elasticity than that of substrate are preferable.     

Industrial application integration using the unification approach to agent-enabled semantic SOA

Within the enterprise, information infrastructure as the mean to bring together different software applications is the key component to enable cooperation and information and knowledge exchange in an open-distributed environment. The paper addresses the issues of industrial application integration in business processes using agent-enabled service-oriented architectures (SOA). In this paper, we show that agent-enabled SOA can play an important role for service integration. Our framework combines Web services (WS) and intelligent agent technologies orchestrated by a business process management system. This framework looks for unification of agent and WS service models, is grounded in a semantic SOA of an agent platform and is supported by the Component Agent Platform Over .NET Framework agent platform tools. We describe the architecture and illustrate the approach by an industrial application scenario from petroleum wells’ drilling.     

小颗粒油页岩热裂解工艺及其影响因素

阐述了小颗粒油页岩热裂解机理,介绍了小颗粒油页岩热裂解液化技术的工艺流程。结合自制流化床结构和国内外相关文献,分析了小颗粒油页岩热裂解的影响因素,最终确定试验的主要影响因素为:反应温度、原料粒径和给料速率。     

油页岩综合利用途径探讨

某煤矿含有大量的油页岩,属煤系高岭岩系列.根据油页岩的鉴定结果和实验室初步试验研究,认为可以利用该油页岩干馏脱水后生成的偏高岭石,作为生产高强混凝土的添加剂;也可以经过脱除显色物质后,制取高附加值的优质高岭土产品或深加工生产高质量的白炭黑及铝盐等产品.综合利用油页岩资源,是该煤矿可持续发展必须解决的重要问题.     

浅谈爆炸危险环境的电气设计

阐述了爆炸危险环境的电气设计与一般工业、民用建筑电气设计的异同。介绍了爆炸危险环境电气设计常用的国家规范、标准和行业的专用标准、规范目录。重点介绍了有关防爆电气的基础知识,提出了整体防爆、综合防雷和系统防静电的设计思路,以及爆炸危险环境(特别是石油库、加油加气站)中电气设计的要点。     

浅析API Spec 5CT第8版的实施对我国油管和套管加工业的影响

API Spec 5CT最新版本第8版在第7版的基础上进行了较大幅度的修订或增补,其中最大的不同之处是首次将油管和套管产品划分为3个等级。比较了该标准的第7版和第8版的主要差异,介绍了新版标准新增的油管和套管加工工艺技术要求概要,结合我国油井管加工业的工艺技术和装备水平,简要分析了第8版API Spec 5CT标准将对我国油井管加工业产生的影响。     

微波处理油田采出水的研究

通过试验研究和分析微波对油田采出水中含油率和聚合物的降解作用,主要探讨水浴加热、微波功率、反映时间等参数与含油率、聚合物的含量关系,总结出各参数对除油率的影响规律和聚合物的降解规律。结果表明：微波对油田采出水具有良好的处理效果,当微波功率为800W,加热时间为70s时,处理效果最好;功率和加热时间的增大对聚合物都有降解趋势,聚合物的降解能够加快油田采出水的除油率。