Composition measurements of crude oil and process water emulsions using thick-film ultrasonic transducers

This paper presents an experimental study to investigate the suitability of thick-film ultrasonic transducers for composition measurements in heterogeneous mixtures. Following on from earlier developments [G. Meng, A.J. Jaworski, T. Dyakowski, J.M. Hale, N.M. White, Design and testing of a thick-film dual-modality sensor for composition measurements in heterogeneous mixtures, Meas. Sci. Technol. 16(4) (2005) 942–954], focused on the design and preliminary testing of the transducers for mixtures of vegetable oil and salty water, the current paper looks in more detail into their application to industrially relevant fluids, namely crude oil and process water, which are common in oil and gas extraction and petrochemical industries. The measurements are based on the time-of-flight of the ultrasonic pressure wave in order to obtain the speed of sound. The results, showing the variation of the speed of sound with the volume fraction of crude oil, for three different temperatures, are compared with five theoretical models available in the existing literature. It is shown that the models proposed by Urick [R.J. Urick, A sound velocity method for determining the compressibility of finely divided substances, J. Appl. Phys. 18 (1947) 983–987] and by Kuster and Toks¨oz [G.T. Kuster, M.N. Toks¨oz, Velocity and attenuation of seismic waves in two-phase media. Part I. Theoretical formulations, Geophysics 39 (1974) 587–606] provide a relatively accurate prediction for the speed of sound in the media studied. Interestingly, the model developed by Povey and co-workers [V.J. Pinfield, M.J.W. Povey, Thermal scattering must be accounted for in the determination of adiabatic compressibility, J. Phys. Chem. B 101 (1997) 1110–1112] only agrees with experiment when its thermal scattering features are neglected. Overall, the results obtained demonstrate that the slim-line and compact thick-film transducers can be considered as a viable means for the composition measurements in the process conditions

Fabrication and characterization of free-standing thick-film piezoelectric cantilevers for energy harvesting

Research into energy harvesting from ambient vibration sources has attracted great interest over the last few years, largely as a result of advances in the areas of wireless technology and low power electronics. One of the mechanisms for converting mechanical vibration to electrical energy is the use of piezoelectric materials, typically operating as a cantilever in a bending mode, which generate a voltage across the electrodes when they are stressed. Typically, the piezoelectric materials are deposited on a non-electro-active substrate and are physically clamped at one end to a rigid base. The presence of the substrate does not contribute directly to the electrical output, but merely serves as a mechanical supporting platform, which can pose difficulties for integration with other microelectronic devices. The aim of this paper is to describe a novel thick-film free-standing cantilever structure that does not use a supporting platform and has the advantage of minimising the movement constraints on the piezoelectric material, thereby maximising the electrical output power. Two configurations of composite cantilever structure were investigated; unimorph and multimorph. A unimorph consists of a pair of silver/palladium (Ag/Pd) electrodes sandwiching a laminar layer of lead zirconate titanate (PZT). A multimorph is an extended version of the unimorph with two pairs of Ag/Pd electrodes and three laminar sections of PZT

Sensor Networks for Maritime Deployment: Modeling and Simulation

Simulation is widely used in Wireless Sensor Networks to assess the feasibility and performance of design decisions before the deployment, assisting the development of optimal solutions or trade-offs. In this paper, we address the particular case of a sensor network deployed at sea, where hundreds or thousands of sensing nodes drift with the stream and organise into a network capable of transmitting results to a remote station. A new simulator was built to address the particularities of the wireless models required to correctly understand the application scenario. The models provide realistic channel simulation, along with additive interference from other sources, where all transmissions are considered independently. The receiver decides which transmission was first and what is the level of noise from the environment and contending nodes. Network algorithms were implemented and compared using different network sizes and parameters. Results show that algorithms are sensitive to deployment conditions and respond differently to each set of environmental parameters

Time-of-Flight Ranging for WSN Locationing (Project Information Sheet)

To develop a narrow-band RF-based Time-of-Flight (ToF) ranging method with sub-meter ranging resolution which can be adopted in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for the purpose of localising sensor nodes. The use of RF will enable point-to-point ranging over larger distance (>50m) than current Ultra-wideband (UWB) based TOF systems with significantly less use of channel bandwidth

Lagrangian Matroids: Representations of Type BnB_n

We introduce the concept of orientation for Lagrangian matroids represented in the flag variety of maximal isotropic subspaces of dimension N in the real vector space of dimension 2N+1. The paper continues the study started in math.CO/0209100.Comment: Requires amssymb.sty; 17 page

Lagrangian Pairs and Lagrangian Orthogonal Matroids

Represented Coxeter matroids of types $C_n$ and $D_n$, that is, symplectic and orthogonal matroids arising from totally isotropic subspaces of symplectic or (even-dimensional) orthogonal spaces, may also be represented in buildings of type $C_n$ and $D_n$, respectively. Indeed, the particular buildings involved are those arising from the flags or oriflammes, respectively, of totally isotropic subspaces. There are also buildings of type $B_n$ arising from flags of totally isotropic subspaces in odd-dimensional orthogonal space. Coxeter matroids of type $B_n$ are the same as those of type $C_n$ (since they depend only upon the reflection group, not the root system). However, buildings of type $B_n$ are distinct from those of the other types. The matroids representable in odd dimensional orthogonal space (and therefore in the building of type $B_n$) turn out to be a special case of symplectic (flag) matroids, those whose top component, or Lagrangian matroid, is a union of two Lagrangian orthogonal matroids. These two matroids are called a Lagrangian pair, and they are the combinatorial manifestation of the ``fork'' at the top of an oriflamme (or of the fork at the end of the Coxeter diagram of $D_n$). Here we give a number of equivalent characterizations of Lagrangian pairs, and prove some rather strong properties of them.Comment: Requires amssymb.sty; 12 pages, 2 LaTeX figure

Energy-efficient data acquisition for accurate signal estimation in wireless sensor networks

Long-term monitoring of an environment is a fundamental requirement for most wireless sensor networks. Owing to the fact that the sensor nodes have limited energy budget, prolonging their lifetime is essential in order to permit long-term monitoring. Furthermore, many applications require sensor nodes to obtain an accurate estimation of a point-source signal (for example, an animal call or seismic activity). Commonly, multiple sensor nodes simultaneously sample and then cooperate to estimate the event signal. The selection of cooperation nodes is important to reduce the estimation error while conserving the network’s energy. In this paper, we present a novel method for sensor data acquisition and signal estimation, which considers estimation accuracy, energy conservation, and energy balance. The method, using a concept of ‘virtual clusters,’ forms groups of sensor nodes with the same spatial and temporal properties. Two algorithms are used to provide functionality. The ‘distributed formation’ algorithm automatically forms and classifies the virtual clusters. The ‘round robin sample scheme’ schedules the virtual clusters to sample the event signals in turn. The estimation error and the energy consumption of the method, when used with a generalized sensing model, are evaluated through analysis and simulation. The results show that this method can achieve an improved signal estimation while reducing and balancing energy consumption