Computer-Aided Instruction in Dynamics: Does It Improve Learning?

Since 1992, the authors have been developing and testing BEST Dynamics software (Basic Engineering Software for Teaching Dynamics) with the goal of transforming how engineering dynamics is taught at the University of Missouri-Rolla, USA. This paper introduces the BEST Dynamics and its classroom implementation, raises questions concerning the cognitive impact of the software, attempts to classify the type of learning environment used in BEST Dynamics, and gives some new directions that are being taken based on the authors\u27\u27 observations and experiences

Novel Coupling Smart Water-CO₂ Flooding for Sandstone Reservoirs

CO2 flooding is an environmentally friendly and cost-effective EOR technique that can be used to unlock residual oil from oil reservoirs. Smart water is any water that is engineered by manipulating the ionic composition, regardless of the resulting salinity of the water. One CO2 flooding mechanism is wettability alteration, which meets with the main smart water flooding function. Injecting CO2 alone increases the likelihood of an early breakthrough and gravity override problems, which have already been solved using water-alternating-gas (WAG) using regular water. WAG is an emerging enhanced oil recovery process designed to enhance sweep efficiency during gas flooding. In this study, we propose a new method to improve oil recovery via synergistically smart brine with CO2. This new method takes advantage of the relative strengths of both processes. We hypothesized that brine depleted in NaCl provides more oil recovery. We also determined that depleting NaCl in brine is not the end of the story; diluting divalent cations/anions in the brine depleted in NaCl provides higher oil recovery. Injecting smart brine depleted in NaCl with diluted Ca2+ and CO2 resulted in a high oil recovery percentage among the other scenarios. Thus, the above water design was applied as a WAG in three cycles, which resulted in a much higher oil recovery of 24.5% of the OOIP. This improved heavy-oil recovery is a surprising and promising result. The spontaneous imbibition agreed with the oil-recovery results. This study sheds light on how manipulating ions in the water used in WAG can significantly enhance oil recovery

Novel Coupling Smart Water-CO₂ Flooding for Sandstone Reservoirs; Smart Seawater-Alternating-CO₂ Flooding (SMSW-AGF)

CO2 flooding is an environmentally friendly and cost-effective EOR technique that can be used to unlock residual oil from oil reservoirs. Smart water is any water that is engineered by manipulating the ionic composition, regardless of the resulting salinity of the water. One CO2 flooding mechanism is wettability alteration, which meets with the main smart water flooding function. Injecting CO2 alone raise an early breakthrough and gravity override problems, which have already been solved using water alternating gas (WAG) using regular water. WAG is an emerging enhanced oil recovery process designed to enhance sweep efficiency during gas flooding. In this study, we propose a new method to improve oil recovery via synergistically smart seawater with CO2. This new method takes advantage of the relative strengths of both processes. We hypothesized that SW depleted in NaCl provided more oil recovery. We also added that depleting NaCl in seawater is not the end of the story; diluting divalent cations/anions in the seawater depleted in NaCl provides higher oil recovery. Injecting smart seawater depleted in NaCl with diluted Ca2+ and CO2 resulted in a high oil recovery percentage among the other scenarios. Thus, the above water design was applied as a WAG in three cycles, which resulted in a much higher oil recovery of 24.5% of the OOIP. This improved heavy oil recovery is a surprising and promising percentage. The spontaneous imbibition agreed with the oil recovery results. This study sheds light on how manipulating ions in the water used in WAG can significantly enhance oil recovery

Work in Progress - Automated Discourse Interventions and Student Teaming

The ability to successfully work in teams is a crucial part of an engineer\u27s workplace success. Engineering education can be improved through a better understanding of how effective teamwork develops. A (patent pending) software tool that listens to team conversations and generates automatic interventions into team discourse can effectively mimic the actions of a skilled facilitator. Automated facilitation tools may help students improve their team skills by providing a simplified model for conversational interventions, which students can readily imitate. This paper describes this tool and presents preliminary findings from student reactions to the tool\u27s use

Comparison between Cold/Hot Smart Water Flooding in Sandstone Reservoirs

The incremental oil recovery has been investigated and approved by many laboratory and field projects using water flooding in tertiary stage. The salinity of the injected water is an important factor observed by many researchers. The more salinity decreases the more oil recovery obtained. The investigations on the hot low salinity water flooding have been conducted by many researchers and they found out that it is useful for increasing oil recovery especially heavy oil due to reducing oil viscosity and make it easy to produce to the surface. The thermal expansion of water plays an important role in the incremental oil recovery mechanism, reducing the density of the injected water relative to the aquifer water. This reduces mixing; minimizing thermal loses to the aquifer. Hot water flooding may also increase the economic life of individual wells by as much as a factor of two. Smart water was also used to alter the reservoir wettability and increase oil recovery by manipulating the divalent cations in the injected water. In this study, we used hot and cold smart water and injected both into the sandstone saturated with crude oil in order to investigate the important role of smart water itself and hot smart water. The systematic results showed that changing some cations in the injected brines was better than to spend more money to heat the smart water. The divalent cations Ca2+ and Mg2+ were the most effective component in the smart water. In this study, we also studied the pH effect of the cold/hot smart water effluent smart water EOR

Enhanced Oil Recovery from Shallow Depths Through the Use of Tight Radius Lateral Drilling [abstract]

Only abstract of poster available.Track I: Power GenerationThere are many heavy oil fields in the world where the oil does not easily flow to the well and conventional production is thereby limited, or currently not economically viable. Missouri alone has billions of barrels of oil along its western edge, that lie just too deep for conventional surface mining (similar to that of the tar sands of Alberta) and yet have an oil that is too heavy to be easily recovered by normal oil well production. Where this oil can be extracted it will add significantly to the reserves of the country. Missouri S&T pioneered the use of high-pressure waterjets as a means of drilling long horizontal holes underground - a technology validated in field tests with Sandia National Laboratories. The technique allows the turning of a drill from an existing vertical well in a radius of less than 9 inches, whereas conventional tools require 20 ft. Once the turn has been made, the drill can then penetrate out horizontally. Once the horizontal wells have been established then one of two different approaches can be taken. The wells may be hydrofraced, as is conventionally done, for example in shale gas recovery, or the sand might be mined. Once the well has been drilled to the edge of a defined area, the drilling head can be reconfigured into a reaming mode in which the jets cut into and mine the oil bearing rock (which in Missouri is up to 30 ft thick). By disintegrating the rock and pumping it to the surface, (in the same way as in Alberta) using a hot water solution, the oil can be removed from the sand, which can then be mixed with a small amount of a binder and re-pumped back into the reamed cavity to provide support for adjacent mining of the material so that all the rock can be mined, and all the oil is recovered. In this way the oil can be recovered without the environmental impacts of the open pit tar sand operations

Work in Progress -- Instrumentation on a Truss Adapted for Pre-College Outreach

Engineering content is a valuable addition to pre-college instruction in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) since it applies scientific concepts, illustrates scientific relevance and technology, and provides measurement opportunities. Also, complex systems and interactions can be shown. This work describes outreach resources using a seven-member instrumented truss apparatus. This aluminum bench-top model is scaled to support up to fifty pounds. Electrical resistance gauges are installed on several members for strain measurement. The resource set includes the truss apparatus, instrumentation, a PowerPoint presentation, and a background document. The pre-college objective is a set of demonstration resources for middle or high school classrooms. Effective outreach design is modeled by tailoring to accommodate curriculum standards, level-appropriate concept terms, and grade continuity. The resources were developed by students in an interdisciplinary college class on sensors and structures. The development activities involved testing the models and measurements and refining the construction. Selected resources were implemented and evaluated in a local middle school classroom. The interdisciplinary content includes structural, force analysis, sensing, and measurement components

Assessment of Engineering Mechanics Instructional Multimedia in a Variety of Instructional Settings

Students from Ten Schools, Representing Seven Countries, Used Interactive Multimedia as a Part of their Engineering Statics Classes. the Software Consisted of Four Modules, Which Focused On: Mohr\u27s Circle; Centroid and Moment of Inertia; Stress Transformation; and Structural Analysis. the Students Completed On-Line Surveys About their Experience with the Software. Analysis of the Results Indicated that Students Rated their Knowledge of the Subject Matter Covered in the Software as Increasing Significantly as a Consequence of using the Software. However, This Increase Was Substantially More Pronounced for Students in U.S. Schools. Students Rated the Software as Significantly More Effective Than their Class Textbooks, And, Again, This Effect Was Substantially Stronger for Students in the U.S. the Analyses Also Indicated that the Software Differed Little in its Impact on Males Versus Females. Ratings on a Number of Additional Outcomes Were Consistently Positive with Respect to Student Opinions of the Software

Are Natural Fractures In Sandstone Reservoir: Water Wet – Mixed Wet – Or Oil Wet?

This study accurately measures the wettability contact angle of native Kuwaiti sandstone reservoir that hosts mixed pore size distributions in both the tight sandstone matrix as well as the natural fracture (NF) embedded in it. Also, this study, effectively, investigates the geometrical size and shape of natural available voids whether matrix voids or NF voids captured in the rock 2D image frame system. Correspondingly, this study is, successfully, measure tight matrix, NF Pore wall, and NF pore opening wettability performance and recovery efficiency contributions inside the sandstone reservoir. A model pore/ grain contact angle wettability is generated. Therefore, this study thrives to enhance new physics that will advance reservoir characterization and production improvement through modeled and measured wettability contact angle. The prepared fresh tight sandstone rock sample in the form of rock fragment is imaged and characterized for porosity, permeability, and wettability contact angle in 2D format utilizing SEM-BSE imaging techniques. The generated images will be quantified using pre-defined logic for wettability contact angle measurement. The data generated will be used to estimate the wettability distribution. Each image captured will be investigated for a magnification of X51 (1 mm Scale). This magnification scale will ensure measurement of all possible pore/ grain petrophysical porosity & permeability features, as well as wettability contact angle of 3 region representations for the tight matrix, the natural fracture pore wall, and the inside fracture void. From measured data and computed logics, the majority portions of natural pore voids and pore-walls are medium-water-wet; however, some fracture-pore-walls show mixed and strongly oil wetting preference. The main factors in the understanding the fracture wettability are pore size distribution and pore morphology that suggests the wettability affinity likelihood. This study shows 3 natural pore regions: tight matrix, natural fracture pore wall, and inside the natural void space. These regions are necessary to characterize wettability behavior for oil production and crude oil reservoir recovery schemes, especially in EOR schemes such as water production and/ or water injection operations. Also, the fracture-to-matrix ratio shows some new interesting features characterizations

Incorporating Web-Based Homework Problems in Engineering Dynamics

We are involved in a project funded by the Department of Education (FIPSE) which focuses on developing interactive software to improve the teaching and learning of engineering statics, dynamics, and mechanics of materials. This paper presents an overview of this project, discusses its objectives, and focuses on one particular aspect of the project.the use of web-based homework problems as assessment tools to evaluate student learning. The overall project includes creating, for all three engineering mechanics courses, the following web-based learning tools: (a) Animated theory modules, using Macromedia.s Flash development software, which display basic theory and example problems in an engaging, clear, and concise way; (b) Conceptual quizzes to evaluate student understanding of the theory; (c) Web-based homework problems to assess students. quantitative skills; (d) Other media elements, including streaming video mini-lectures over key topics, and video of real mechanisms and examples. The paper will give examples of web-based homework used in dynamics, discuss aspects of creating and using these, and give some results of student feedback from using these problems