Developing a Robust Surrogate Model of Chemical Flooding Based on the Artificial Neural Network for Enhanced Oil Recovery Implications

Application of chemical flooding in petroleum reservoirs turns into hot topic of the recent researches. Development strategies of the aforementioned technique are more robust and precise when we consider both economical points of view (net present value, NPV) and technical points of view (recovery factor, RF). In current study many attempts have been made to propose predictive model for estimation of efficiency of chemical flooding in oil reservoirs. To gain this end, a couple of swarm intelligence and artificial neural network (ANN) is employed. Also, lucrative and high precise chemical flooding data banks reported in previous attentions are utilized to test and validate proposed intelligent model. According to the mean square error (MSE), correlation coefficient, and average absolute relative deviation, the suggested swarm approach has acceptable reliability, integrity and robustness. Thus, the proposed intelligent model can be considered as an alternative model to predict the efficiency of chemical flooding in oil reservoir when the required experimental data are not available or accessible

Estimating the heat capacity of non-Newtonian ionanofluid systems using ANN, ANFIS, and SGB tree algorithms

This work investigated the capability of multilayer perceptron artificial neural network (MLP–ANN), stochastic gradient boosting (SGB) tree, radial basis function artificial neural network (RBF–ANN), and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) models to determine the heat capacity (Cp) of ionanofluids in terms of the nanoparticle concentration (x) and the critical temperature (Tc), operational temperature (T), acentric factor (ω), and molecular weight (Mw) of pure ionic liquids (ILs). To this end, a comprehensive database of literature reviews was searched. The results of the SGB model were more satisfactory than the other models. Furthermore, an analysis was done to determine the outlying bad data points. It showed that most of the experimental data points were located in a reliable zone for the development of the model. The mean squared error and R 2 were 0.00249 and 0.987, 0.0132 and 0.9434, 0.0320 and 0.8754, and 0.0201 and 0.9204 for the SGB, MLP–ANN, ANFIS, and RBF–ANN, respectively. According to this study, the ability of SGB for estimating the Cp of ionanofluids was shown to be greater than other models. By eliminating the need for conducting costly and time-consuming experiments, the SGB strategy showed its superiority compared with experimental measurements. Furthermore, the SGB displayed great generalizability because of the stochastic element. Therefore, it can be highly applicable to unseen conditions. Furthermore, it can help chemical engineers and chemists by providing a model with low parameters that yields satisfactory results for estimating the Cp of ionanofluids. Additionally, the sensitivity analysis showed that Cp is directly related to T, Mw, and Tc, and has an inverse relation with ω and x. Mw and Tc had the highest impact and ω had the lowest impact on Cp.https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applscipm2021Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineerin

Immiscible WAG injection: a core-scale investigation of operational parameters impacts

Water Alternating Gas (WAG) injection, commonly used in light to medium crude oil reservoirs, is a well-established technique for enhanced oil recovery combining the effects of two conventional oil recovery processes - water injection and gas injection. Immiscible water alternating gas (IWAG) injection is considered as an appropriate injection type dependent on economical and productive aspects. During the IWAG process, injected gas and oil are always in separate phases due to low-pressure maintenance, and it takes advantages in improving the stability displacement front in the macroscopic sweep as well as enhancing microscopic sweep in narrow pores. In order to check the optimum operational condition in which to apply IWAG injection at the field-scale, this injection process is usually tested as a core-flooding experiment, which is time-consuming and expensive. In this research, a model of core-scale IWAG injection is introduced with validation by Double Displacement Process (DDP) experimental data from previous research. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) with CCD design is used to investigate the impact of five operational parameters on the volume of oil recovery. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is employed to determine the optimum combination of operational parameters to achieve the highest oil recovery factor for each operation scenario. The results indicate that all the main operational parameters, including timing, ratio, flow rate, slug size, and sequence, are significant for the response surface model. The PSO models reach good convergent results, with the volume of oil recovery for each case as 0.613, 0.650, and 0.666 pore volume. The performance of optimum IWAG injection is significantly better than only water-flooding or gas injection, with results approximately 5% higher than water-flooding, similar to double displacement process (DDP), and approximately 20% better than gas injection for the same operational conditions. These optimization tools are recommended for further research of WAG injection, both the experimental and simulation processes

Experimental and Numerical Analysis of Ethanol Fueled HCCI Engine

Presently, the research on the homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engines has gained importance in the field of automotive power applications due to its superior efficiency and low emissions compared to the conventional internal combustion (IC) engines. In principle, the HCCI uses premixed lean homogeneous charge that auto-ignites volumetrically throughout the cylinder. The homogeneous mixture preparation is the main key to achieve high fuel economy and low exhaust emissions from the HCCI engines. In the recent past, different techniques to prepare homogeneous mixture have been explored. The major problem associated with the HCCI is to control the auto-ignition over wide range of engine operating conditions. The control strategies for the HCCI engines were also explored. This dissertation investigates the utilization of ethanol, a potential major contributor to the fuel economy of the future. Port fuel injection (PFI) strategy was used to prepare the homogeneous mixture external to the engine cylinder in a constant speed, single cylinder, four stroke air cooled engine which was operated on HCCI mode. Seven modules of work have been proposed and carried out in this research work to establish the results of using ethanol as a potential fuel in the HCCI engine. Ethanol has a low Cetane number and thus it cannot be auto-ignited easily. Therefore, intake air preheating was used to achieve auto-ignition temperatures. In the first module of work, the ethanol fueled HCCI engine was thermodynamically analysed to determine the operating domain. The minimum intake air temperature requirement to achieve auto-ignition and stable HCCI combustion was found to be 130 °C. Whereas, the knock limit of the engine limited the maximum intake air temperature of 170 °C. Therefore, the intake air temperature range was fixed between 130-170 °C for the ethanol fueled HCCI operation. In the second module of work, experiments were conducted with the variation of intake air temperature from 130-170 °C at a regular interval of 10 °C. It was found that, the increase in the intake air temperature advanced the combustion phase and decreased the exhaust gas temperature. At 170 °C, the maximum combustion efficiency and thermal efficiency were found to be 98.2% and 43% respectively. The NO emission and smoke emissionswere found to be below 11 ppm and 0.1% respectively throughout this study. From these results of high efficiency and low emissions from the HCCI engine, the following were determined using TOPSIS method. They are (i) choosing the best operating condition, and (ii) which input parameter has the greater influence on the HCCI output. In the third module of work, TOPSIS - a multi-criteria decision making technique was used to evaluate the optimum operating conditions. The optimal HCCI operating condition was found at 70% load and 170 °C charge temperature. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) test results revealed that, the charge temperature would be the most significant parameter followed by the engine load. The percentage contribution of charge temperature and load were63.04% and 27.89% respectively. In the fourth module of work, the GRNN algorithm was used to predict the output parameters of the HCCI engine. The network was trained, validated, and tested with the experimental data sets. Initially, the network was trained with the 60% of the experimental data sets. Further, the validation and testing of the network was done with each 20% data sets. The validation results predicted that, the output parameters those lie within 2% error. The results also showed that, the GRNN models would be advantageous for network simplicity and require less sparse data. The developed new tool efficiently predicted the relation between the input and output parameters. In the fifth module of work, the EGR was used to control the HCCI combustion. An optimum of 5% EGR was found to be optimum, further increase in the EGR caused increase in the hydrocarbon (HC) emissions. The maximum brake thermal efficiency of 45% was found for 170 °C charge temperature at 80% engine load. The NO emission and smoke emission were found to be below 10 ppm and 0.61% respectively. In the sixth module of work, a hybrid GRNN-PSO model was developed to optimize the ethanol-fueled HCCI engine based on the output performance and emission parameters. The GRNN network interpretive of the probability estimate such that it can predict the performance and emission parameters of HCCI engine within the range of input parameters. Since GRNN cannot optimize the solution, and hence swarm based adaptive mechanism was hybridized. A new fitness function was developed by considering the six engine output parameters. For the developed fitness function, constrained optimization criteria were implemented in four cases. The optimum HCCI engine operating conditions for the general criteria were found to be 170 °C charge temperature, 72% engine load, and 4% EGR. This model consumed about 60-75 ms for the HCCI engine optimization. In the last module of work, an external fuel vaporizer was used to prepare the ethanol fuel vapour and admitted into the HCCI engine. The maximum brake thermal efficiency of 46% was found for 170 °C charge temperature at 80% engine load. The NO emission and smoke emission were found to be below 5 ppm and 0.45% respectively. Overall, it is concluded that, the HCCI combustion of sole ethanol fuel is possible with the charge heating only. The high load limit of HCCI can be extended with ethanol fuel. High thermal efficiency and low emissions were possible with ethanol fueled HCCI to meet the current demand

A novel approach for solving nonlinear flow equations : The next step towards an accurate assessment of shale gas resources

Peer reviewedPostprin

Modelling oil and gas flow rate through chokes: A critical review of extant models

Oil and gas metering is primarily used as the basis for evaluating the economic viability of oil wells. Owing to the economic implications of oil and gas metering, the subject of oil and gas flow rate measurement has witnessed a sustained interest by the oil and gas community and the academia. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, despite the growing number of published articles on this subject, there is yet no comprehensive critical review on it. The objective of this paper is to provide a broad overview of models and modelling techniques applied to the estimation of oil and gas flow rate through chokes while also critically evaluating them. For the sake of simplicity and ease of reference, the outcomes of the review are presented in tables in an integrated and concise manner. The articles for this review were extracted from many subject areas. For the theoretical pieces related to oil and gas flow rate in general, the authors relied heavily upon several key drilling fluid texts. For operational and field studies, the authors relied on conference proceedings from the society of petroleum engineers. These sources were supplemented with articles in peer reviewed journals in order to contextualize the subject in terms of current practices. This review is interspersed with critiques of the models while the areas requiring improvement were also outlined. Findings from the bibliometric analysis indicate that there is no universal model for all flow situations despite the huge efforts in this direction. Furthermore, a broad survey of literature on recent flow models reveals that researchers are gravitating towards the field of artificial intelligence due to the tremendous promises it offers. This review constitutes the first critical compilation on a broad range of models applied to predicting oil and gas flow rates through chokes

Dynamic Modeling, Sensor Placement Design, and Fault Diagnosis of Nuclear Desalination Systems

Fault diagnosis of sensors, devices, and equipment is an important topic in the nuclear industry for effective and continuous operation of nuclear power plants. All the fault diagnostic approaches depend critically on the sensors that measure important process variables. Whenever a process encounters a fault, the effect of the fault is propagated to some or all the process variables. The ability of the sensor network to detect and isolate failure modes and anomalous conditions is crucial for the effectiveness of a fault detection and isolation (FDI) system. However, the emphasis of most fault diagnostic approaches found in the literature is primarily on the procedures for performing FDI using a given set of sensors. Little attention has been given to actual sensor allocation for achieving the efficient FDI performance. This dissertation presents a graph-based approach that serves as a solution for the optimization of sensor placement to ensure the observability of faults, as well as the fault resolution to a maximum possible extent. This would potentially facilitate an automated sensor allocation procedure. Principal component analysis (PCA), a multivariate data-driven technique, is used to capture the relationships in the data, and to fit a hyper-plane to the data. The fault directions for different fault scenarios are obtained from the prediction errors, and fault isolation is then accomplished using new projections on these fault directions. The effectiveness of the use of an optimal sensor set versus a reduced set for fault detection and isolation is demonstrated using this technique. Among a variety of desalination technologies, the multi-stage flash (MSF) processes contribute substantially to the desalinating capacity in the world. In this dissertation, both steady-state and dynamic simulation models of a MSF desalination plant are developed. The dynamic MSF model is coupled with a previously developed International Reactor Innovative and Secure (IRIS) model in the SIMULINK environment. The developed sensor placement design and fault diagnostic methods are illustrated with application to the coupled nuclear desalination system. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the newly developed integrated approach to performance monitoring and fault diagnosis with optimized sensor placement for large industrial systems

Population-based algorithms for improved history matching and uncertainty quantification of Petroleum reservoirs

In modern field management practices, there are two important steps that shed light on a multimillion dollar investment. The first step is history matching where the simulation model is calibrated to reproduce the historical observations from the field. In this inverse problem, different geological and petrophysical properties may provide equally good history matches. Such diverse models are likely to show different production behaviors in future. This ties the history matching with the second step, uncertainty quantification of predictions. Multiple history matched models are essential for a realistic uncertainty estimate of the future field behavior. These two steps facilitate decision making and have a direct impact on technical and financial performance of oil and gas companies. Population-based optimization algorithms have been recently enjoyed growing popularity for solving engineering problems. Population-based systems work with a group of individuals that cooperate and communicate to accomplish a task that is normally beyond the capabilities of each individual. These individuals are deployed with the aim to solve the problem with maximum efficiency. This thesis introduces the application of two novel population-based algorithms for history matching and uncertainty quantification of petroleum reservoir models. Ant colony optimization and differential evolution algorithms are used to search the space of parameters to find multiple history matched models and, using a Bayesian framework, the posterior probability of the models are evaluated for prediction of reservoir performance. It is demonstrated that by bringing latest developments in computer science such as ant colony, differential evolution and multiobjective optimization, we can improve the history matching and uncertainty quantification frameworks. This thesis provides insights into performance of these algorithms in history matching and prediction and develops an understanding of their tuning parameters. The research also brings a comparative study of these methods with a benchmark technique called Neighbourhood Algorithms. This comparison reveals the superiority of the proposed methodologies in various areas such as computational efficiency and match quality