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Fall 2016

Stewart, Robert A

Bitumen and heavy oil comprise a significant percentage of proven oil reserves globally. The environmental impacts of producing these resources with current technologies is a concern for environmentalists, oil producing companies, resource rich jurisdictions and society at large. Dilution of the...

Spring 2015

Primkulov, Bauyrzhan K

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...

Fall 2014

Afshar, Shima

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...

Fall 2015

Marciales, Andrea

Heavy-oil and bitumen recovery requires high recovery factors to offset the extreme high cost of the process. Attention has been given to solvent injection for this purpose and it has been observed that high recoveries are achievable when combined with steam injection. Heavier (“liquid”) solvents...

Spring 2013

Chini, Seyed Farshid

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...

Fall 2021

Sumaiya Farzana

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...

Fall 2019

Pratama, Randy A

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,...

Fall 2014

Koch, Brendan M

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...

Fall 2013

Naderi, Khosrow

The world energy demand is constantly increasing and fossil fuels are still by far the main energy resource that supplies the world energy consumption market, therefore increasing oil recovery from all types of reservoirs is an important matter. The burning of fossil fuels for energy purposes, on...

Fall 2011

ALBAHLANI, ALMUATASIM MOHAMMED

This thesis introduces a new approach for heavy-oil recovery from fractured reservoirs: Steam-Over-Solvent Injection in Fractured Reservoirs (SOS-FR). The SOS-FR technique is a new technology proposed as an alternative method to the sole injection of steam or solvent and consists of three...