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Skip to Search Results- 1Afshar, Shima
- 1Black, Meghan E
- 1Chen, Huanchen
- 1Chini, Seyed Farshid
- 1Gheshlaghi, Behnam
- 1Koch, Brendan M
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Spring 2015
The minable oil sands extraction process can be understood on a scale of a single oil sand grain. When the oil sand ore is mixed with warm water, each sand granule is initially covered with bitumen film which ruptures under the composite effect of shear and interfacial forces, while water...
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Colloid Science of Sand Remediation: A Study Motivated by the Non-Aqueous Extraction of Bitumen from Oil Sands
DownloadFall 2014
The current water-based method of bitumen extraction requires withdrawal of fresh water from the Athabasca River — a practice which leads to the continual buildup of tailings ponds and other environmental concerns. As Alberta’s bitumen production is expected to more than double by 2020, there is...
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Spring 2013
Removal of a drop from its substrate may be gradually (e.g. evaporation) or all at once (e.g. shedding). In this thesis, drop adhesion force as a base for understanding the all at once removal of a drop from its substrate, and drop evaporation in room temperature as one of the gradual removal...
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Dynamics of spontaneous initial spreading and spreading of a hydrodynamically driven droplet under the influence of surrounding pressure
DownloadFall 2021
We investigate experimentally the early time dynamics of spontaneous spreading of silicone oils with various viscosities at elevated surrounding pressures. The surrounding medium pressure is increased in a monotone fashion starting from atmospheric pressure to a maximum value of 30 megapascal...
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Effect of Temperature, Phase Change, and Chemical Additive on Interfacial Properties and Performance of Steam Applications
DownloadFall 2019
When considering the wettability state during steam applications, we find that most issues remain unanswered. Removal of polar groups from the rock surface with increasing temperature improves water wettability; however, other factors, including phase change, play a reverse role. In other words,...
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Fabrication and Characterization of Photolithographically Patterned Rough Surfaces Demonstrating Extreme Contact Angle Behavior
DownloadFall 2014
This thesis features experimental work done to fabricate and characterize silicon surfaces patterned using photolithographic techniques, both standard and novel, to produce a variety of surfaces with roughness of controlled geometric properties. In specific, one set of the surfaces fabricated...
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Fall 2015
Drop transfer from one solid surface to another through stretching liquid bridges between them is important for many industrial applications. Due to the different dominate forces, three possible regimes exist: Quasi-static Regime, where the transfer process is only dominated by surface forces;...
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Porosity and permeability in the Graminia Formation, Upper Devonian Winterburn Group in the Germain Field, northeastern Alberta
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The Upper Devonian Graminia Formation (Winterburn Group) found in the Germain Field of northeastern Alberta includes the Blueridge Member (Frasnian) and the Upper Graminia Member (Famennian). A green silty-shale paleosol overlies the formation in this area. The bitumen-bearing dolostones of this...
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Spring 2024
Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) has proved to be a technically and commercially successful methodology for recovering heavy-oil in Canada. At present, there are 22 commercial SAGD projects with over 300 pads and 2,700 well pairs, contributing to over 1.5 million bbl/day of production. The...
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Rheology of Bitumen at the Onset of Asphaltene Aggregation and its Effects on the Stability of Water-in-Oil Emulsion
DownloadFall 2015
Asphaltenes are the heaviest fraction of bitumen. Asphaltenes not only play an important role in the high viscosity of bitumen but also in the water-in-oil (W/O) emulsion stability. Nevertheless, their exact function in the stability mechanism of W/O emulsion still remains unresolved. It is...