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Skip to Search Results- 1Afshar, Shima
- 1Aghaie, Ermia
- 1Baker, Kathleen E.N.
- 1Brandon, Jordan T
- 1Brown, Daniel M.
- 1Chen, Huanchen
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Near-Wellbore Salinity Effect on Sand Control Plugging by Fines Migration in Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage Producer Wells
DownloadFall 2023
Sand control screens are necessary for steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) wells drilled into oil sands to prevent sand production. However, the accumulation of mobilized fine particles near the wellbore can result in screen plugging, adversely affecting the well's flow performance. This...
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Boxed-in: Comparing Algorithms for Box-flight Mass-Balance Greenhouse Gas Flux Measurements from Mineable and In Situ Oil Sands Developments
DownloadSpring 2022
To combat global warming, Canada has committed to reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs) 40-45% below 2005 emission levels by 2025. Monitoring emissions and deriving accurate inventories are essential to reaching these goals. GHGs can be measured at a small scale, often using ground measurements which...
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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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Methane Production and Emission Mitigation in Oil Sands Tailings Concurrent with Hydrocarbon Degradation under Nitrogen Limited Conditions
DownloadFall 2020
Alberta’s oil sands generate large volumes of tailings from bitumen ore processing. These tailings ponds produce biogenic methane, which can be measured across 60-80% of the tailings surface. Based on current surface area data and emissions studies, tailings ponds could account for 8% of Canada’s...
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Fall 2020
Oil sands mining is a significant disturbance in the Canadian boreal forest. One objective for reclamation after mining is to create a self-sustaining ecosystem, which includes establishing a native plant community. For this thesis, study one evaluates the different plant assembly mechanisms,...
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Bioremediation of oil sands process affected water sourced naphthenic acid fraction compounds
DownloadFall 2020
Current development of Alberta’s oil sands region requires large volumes of water, leading to an abundance of oil sands process affected water (OSPW). OSPW contains naphthenic acid fraction compounds (NAFCs) which have been found to contribute extensively to OSPW toxicity. Degradation of this...
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Spring 2020
Albertan oil sands ores are becoming more difficult to process efficiently as the clay content of the ore increases and the grade of the ore worsens. A key to improving the extraction of bitumen from low-grade oil sands, thereby increasing the longevity of this critical resource, is reducing the...
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Spring 2019
This thesis aims to demonstrate the feasibility of using System Dynamics (SD) techniques to develop a transparent, open-source and reproducible model capable of simulating long-term soil water dynamics in a tailings-cap system subject to upward flux from a consolidating tailings substrate. The...
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Protecting Worker Safety in Alberta by Enhancing Hazard Identification and Control for Hazards Associated with Tailings Facilities, Dams, and Systems
DownloadSpring 2019
My research was motivated by a fatality that occurred at an oil sands tailings operation on January 19, 2014, when a worker drowned in an underground cavern which formed under a leaking tailings transport system. At the time of the incident, the organization and workers did not know that ground...
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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,...