Theses and Dissertations
This collection contains theses and dissertations of graduate students of the University of Alberta. The collection contains a very large number of theses electronically available that were granted from 1947 to 2009, 90% of theses granted from 2009-2014, and 100% of theses granted from April 2014 to the present (as long as the theses are not under temporary embargo by agreement with the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies). IMPORTANT NOTE: To conduct a comprehensive search of all UofA theses granted and in University of Alberta Libraries collections, search the library catalogue at www.library.ualberta.ca - you may search by Author, Title, Keyword, or search by Department.
To retrieve all theses and dissertations associated with a specific department from the library catalogue, choose 'Advanced' and keyword search "university of alberta dept of english" OR "university of alberta department of english" (for example). Past graduates who wish to have their thesis or dissertation added to this collection can contact us at erahelp@ualberta.ca.
Items in this Collection
- 40Huang, Biao (Chemical and Materials Engineering)
- 5Forbes, Fraser (Chemical and Materials Engineering)
- 2Li, Zukui (Chemical and Materials Engineering)
- 2Prasad, Vinay (Chemical and Materials Engineering)
- 1Afacan, Artin (Chemical and Materials Engineering)
- 1Forbes, J.Fraser (Chemical and Materials Engineering)
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Fall 2011
The large number of control loops in a modern industrial plant poses a serious challenge for operators and engineers to monitor these loops to maintain them at optimal conditions continuously. Much research has been done on control loop performance assessment and monitoring of individual...
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Camera based Primary Separation Vessel Interface Level Detection and Estimation Utilizing Markov Random Field based Image Processing
DownloadSpring 2017
The level of the froth middling interface in primary separation vessel plays an important role in overall bitumen recovery in conventional oil sands bitumen extraction process. To maintain the interface within a certain range of level, the accurate measurement is always desired. Online camera...
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Spring 2017
Model Predictive Control (MPC) is widely applied in the process industry nowadays. Chemical processes are corrupted by all kinds of uncertainties, such as measurement noises, disturbances and parameter uncertainties. Without consideration of uncertainties, conventional MPC will cause various...
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Spring 2019
In the oil sands extraction process, bitumen (crude oil) is separated from the sands in the Primary Separation Vessel (PSV) through a water-based gravity separation process. The interface between froth (crude oil) and middlings (water and sand) is the most important control variable in the PSV...
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Spring 2024
In the bitumen extraction process, precise control of the froth-middling interface in the Primary Separation Cell (PSC) is critical for maximizing bitumen recovery. Traditional methods for monitoring this interface suffer from reliability issues due to sensor clogging and challenging process...
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Fall 2009
This thesis is concerned with subspace identification and its applications for controller performance assessment and process modeling from closed-loop data. A joint input-output closed-loop subspace identification method is developed which provides consistent estimation of the subspace matrices...
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Fall 2015
A number of industrial processes involve variables that cannot be reliably measured in real time using online sensors. Many such variables are required as inputs in control schemes to ensure safe and efficient plant operation. Laboratory analysis, which is a reliable method of measuring these...
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Spring 2018
Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technology widely used in Canada. Data available in SAGD industrial processes contain valuable information for monitoring, soft sensing, control, and optimization. This thesis focuses on data mining and optimization in the...
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Data Quality Assessment for Closed-Loop System Identification and Forecasting with Application to Soft Sensors
DownloadFall 2012
In many chemical plants, data historians store thousands of variables at fast sampling rates. Much of this collected data is routine operating data that could easily be used for system identification and forecasting, especially in the design of soft sensors. Currently, there is no framework for...
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Fall 2013
Time consuming offline laboratory analysis and high cost hardware measurement techniques render difficulties in obtaining the important quality variables in real time application. Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is widely used as a process analytical tool (PAT) in chemical processes, providing...