Next generation nuclear energy systems currently under consideration aim for significant advances over light water reactors (LWRs) in the areas of sustainability, economics, safety, reliability, and non-proliferation. The development of these systems is an international effort, involving collaborations under the framework of the OECD's Generation-IV International Forum (GIF) [1] and IAEA's International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO) [2]. Studies under these programs highlight the importance of the closed fuel cycle systems using fast-neutron reactors to meet especially the sustainability goal through efficient resource utilization.
The current path relying heavily on LWRs in a "once-through" fuel cycle is not sustainable. The LWRs extract energy from only a small fraction of the natural uranium in the fuel. The used LWR fuel contains more than 95% of the original uranium, as well as heavier elements that are used as fuel. In comparison, fast reactors can extract about two orders of magnitude more energy from the same amount of fuel. The once-through fuel cycle with no provision for recycling of used fuel also places heavy burden on the spent fuel repository storage capacity. In a fast reactor with a closed fuel cycle, the transuranic elements that remain radioactive for a long time can be consumed, significantly reducing the repository space needed for waste isolation. In this presentation, a technology review of fast reactor systems and a summary of recent U.S. fuel cycle option study will be given.

In 2007, at the request of the nuclear utilities in Texas, the Nuclear Power Institute (NPI) was established at Texas A&M University to meet pressing human resource development needs in the nuclear industry. NPI is a partnership involving industry, universities, community colleges, high schools and junior highs, teachers, communities, government agencies and civic and elected leaders. In order to meet the workforce demands, NPI has created several new programs. At the baccalaureate level, a distance delivery certificate program was established to prepare engineers in several disciplines including mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemical engineering and other engineering disciplines to provide a background in nuclear power plant technology for preparation for careers in the nuclear industry. To prepare graduates for roles as nuclear power plant technicians, new associate degree programs were developed at two-year community and technical colleges. Finally, to attract younger students into studies leading to jobs at nuclear power plants and to inform them about the role of nuclear power in society and the economy, NPI has also developed extensive outreach programs with teachers, high schools and junior highs and communities. All of the NPI activities are closely coordinated and involve the industry partners.

Porosity and permeability are the most important hydrocarbon reservoir parameters. There are two methods for porosity determination including direct (core analysis by helium injection)and indirect (well log analysis). Similarly, permeability can be obtained at the laboratory from core samples by dry air injection or well testing method. These methods demand high cost and are time consuming. So, due to economic reasons and impossibility of coring in horizontal wells, core data would be available for limited number of wells. However, most wells have well log data. In the present study, intelligent soft computing neural networks that nowadays are widely used in petroleum industry were used for prediction of porosity and permeability in an oil field. In this study, MATLAB software was used to handle neural networks core and well logs data, including porosity and permeability. These networks were developed using error-back propagation algorithm within feed-forward networks. After comparing the measured and network predicted results, the parameters of the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) were adjusted for a desired network. The correlation coefficient obtained between core results and ANN predicted porosity and permeability are 0.82 and 0.92, respectively. These results show that intelligent neural network models have predicted porosity and permeability successfully. Finally, the above mentioned networks were generalized to the third well which had no core data.

This report has aimed to provide background information on the present situation and future prospects for the coal preparation industry in Russia.
Russia has a second of the world's recoverable coal reserves and a fifth of proven reserves (193.3 billion tons). About 80% of these reserves are thermal coal. Proven coal reserves are sufficient for at least 550 years of production.
The main directions of strategic development of the coal industry defined its long-term program for the period up to 2030: the increase in coal production to 430 million ton in 2030 (by 25% compared to the present day), and increasing its exports from 130 million ton to 170 million ton in 2030; expedited development of the coal industry in the east of the country in order to bring the producers to major markets; the growth of preparation and deep processing of coal; the sharp increase productivity through technological innovation; strengthening of industrial and environmental safety.
Today, 75% of coal production in the country provide 10 large vertically integrated private companies, which include mining, processing, transport enterprises, the objects of heat and electricity generation, coke production and metallurgical enterprises.
The techniques and flow sheet used at new and modernized Russian preparation plants are increasingly compliant with international standards. New technologies include:
- Use of different types of separators (rolling, drum, bath) and heavy-medium cyclones for separation and preparation in heavy mediums.
- Preparation of coarse slime using spiral separators.
- Maximum use of mechanized techniques for dehydration in preference to thermal drying (although we believe that mechanized drying is not always justified, due to the unstable moisture content of coal inputs).
- Extensive use of belt filter presses for dehydration of high-ash slime.
Intensive work is underway to find alternatives to floatation techniques in coal slime processing, and analysis of the physiochemical characteristics of slime suggests that selective flocculation for fine-grained slurry could be used instead of flotation.
Coal extraction from pits with coal-bearing overburden rock presents a major environmental and economic challenge. Coal losses from coal-bearing overburden rock with 50-75% ash content amounts to 10-15% of total coal output at open pits. A new method for coal extraction from overburden rocks with more than 50% ash content using steeply inclined separators (SIS) has been developed by the Institute of Solid Fossil Fuel Preparation and implemented at Kuzbass mines.

The ironmaking and steelmaking industry are responsible for a significant amount of energy consumed in Brazil, where the reduction of iron ore is the step that has the biggest consumes. The coal used in Brazil, which is the main source of energy of this sector, is 100% imported. In this context, the use of alternative carbon sources in consolidated processes and in the new routes in development that do not depend on coke to the iron production, has been the focus of several studies. This study aimed to develop briquettes from alternative carbonaceous materials to use in ironmaking processes. The briquettes were produced with Brazilian coal, charcoal fines and petroleum coke, and with the following binders: lime and molasses, olivine and Portland cement. These briquettes were obtained with a hydraulic press and submitted to the reactivity and mechanical strength tests. The reactivity was evaluated by mass variation when the briquettes were submitted to the high temperatures until (1200 °C) in CO2 atmosphere conditions. The mechanical strength tests were carried out before and after the reactivity test, through the compressive strength and drum. To verify the responsible phenomena for the differences of reactivity and mechanical strength between the briquettes, the physical and chemical characterization and microstructural analysis of the samples were carried out. From the results obtained, it was possible to indicate the performance of briquettes produced with different combinations of carbonaceous materials and binders.

With the world's population increasing from six billion currently to approximately nine billion by the year 2040, achieving a healthy lifestyle for all people on earth will depend, in part, on the availability of affordable energy, especially electricity. This work considers the various choices, or options, for producing electricity and the consequences associated with each option. The options are fossil, renewables, and nuclear. The consequences associated with these three options are addressed in five different areas: economics, environmental effects, public health and safety, sustainability, and politics. All options are needed, but some options may be better than others when compared in the five areas. This presentation is a brief summary of a short course entitled "Energy Choices and Consequences", which was created by the author and is continually updated. The short course is currently being taught to Honor Students at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Thus, a primary goal of this work is to provide a sound basis for making informed decisions about the path forward for electricity production.

A new oil sensor system is presented for the continuous, online measurement of the wear in industrial gears, turbines, generators, transformers and hydraulic systems. Detection of change is much earlier than existing technologies such as particle counting, vibration measurement or recording temperature. Thus targeted, corrective procedures and/or maintenance can be carried out before actual damage occurs. Efficient machine utilization, accurately timed preventive maintenance, a reduction of downtime and an increased service life and can all be achieved.<br />The oil sensor system measures the components of the complex impedances X of the oils, in particular the electrical conductivity, kappa and relative dielectric constant, epsilon r, and the oil temperature T. The values kappa and epsilon r are determined independently.<br />Inorganic compounds occur at contact surfaces from the wear of parts, broken oil molecules, acids or oil soaps. These all lead to an increase in the electrical conductivity, which correlates directly with the wear. In oils containing additives, changes in dielectric constant infer the chemical breakdown of additives. A reduction in the lubricating ability of the oils, the determination of impurities, the continuous evaluation of the wear of bearings and gears and the oil aging all together follow the holistic approach of real-time monitoring of changes in the oil-machine system.<br />Different application examples from the industrial sectors wind energy and gearbox test stands and will be presented.

The main parameter to determine the possibilities to enhance oil recovery by gas injection into a specific oil field is the measurement of Minimum Miscibility Pressure (MMP). Accurate determination of this parameter is critical for an adequate design of injection equipment project investment prospect. This pressure is the lowest pressure for which a gas can obtain miscibility through a multi contact process with a given oil reservoir at the reservoir temperature. The oil formation to which the process is applied must be operated at or above the MMP. Before field trial, this parameter is to be determined at the laboratory which traditionally is done by help of a slim tube or a raising bubble experiment. However, because such experiments are very expensive (time-consuming), the question we want to answer in this article is as follows: Is this still another method to measure the MMP? However, in order to investigate the MMP, we suggest another method by using compositional and empirical models. For this purpose, we used some of available experimental data from an oil reservoir with different injection gases to obtain a new MMP correlation that is suitable to be applied to this oil reservoir. We can use this obtained formula to determine minimum miscibility pressure of this oil reservoir with more accuracy.

Gas reservoirs can be classified into dry gas reservoirs, wet gas reservoirs and Gas condensate reservoirs. In gas condensate reservoirs, the reservoir temperature lies between the critical temperature and the cricondentherm. The gas will drop out liquid by retrograde condensation in the reservoir, when the pressure falls below the dew point. This heavy part of the gas has found many applications in industry and also in daily life. By remaining in reservoir not only this valuable liquid is lost but also its accumulation will result in forming a condensate bank near the well bore region which makes a considerable reduction in well productivity. This highlights the need to find an economical way to increase the condensate recovery from these reservoirs. Wells in gas condensate reservoirs usually exhibit complex behaviors due to condensate deposition as the bottom hole pressure drops below the dew point. The formation of this liquid saturation results in reduced gas relative permeability around the well bore and a loss of gas productivity. One of the several ways of minimizing the pressure drop in order to reduce liquid drop-out is hydraulic fracturing before or after the development of the condensate bank. The pressure transients are often used as a reliable evaluation of stimulation performance for field development planning. It has been shown that condensate deposits effects can be identified and quantified by well test analysis dealing with a well test composite behavior; which, in presence of hydraulic fractures becomes much more complex. But the various impacting factors of stimulation; such as fracture length, conductivity, orientation, etc. can also be observed and defined in these analyses. In this paper, modeling and interpretation of pressure transient responses of multiple hydraulic fractured horizontal wells using a numerical reservoir model have been investigated.

Multi Stage Stimulation (MSS) is an established and growing market in Oil & Gas. The goal of this product line is temporarily isolation of sections of a well to perform sequential stimulations (hydraulic fracturing). This has been primarily used in “Unconventional” reservoirs such as shale plays and tight gas, the majority of which are horizontal wells. For cemented applications, isolation is currently achieved using primarily Frac-plugs or Bridge-plugs. Innovations to revolutionize this market are the new developments of a class of water reactive or degradable alloys. Novel processing routes have been adopted to transform these dissolvable materials into high strength bulk nanostructured alloys and have been adopted for Schlumberger’s MSS Product line, into the Infinity Plug and Perf System*. The system is essentially it is a valve in the shape of a ball made of the degradable material, deployed on a seat or profile with the ability to hold 10,000 psi [69 MPa] pressure differential during stimulation (fracking) can replace Frac-plugs and reduce intervention time to remove the barrier to entry for the next stage. This ball valve then degrades over time in contact with water based well fluids. Applications of novel processing routes to engineer high strength nanostructured degradable alloys with tailor-able well fluid reactivity have opened a variety of applications in oilfield services. Our presentation will introduce MSS as a topic for general interest and discuss salient technological developments in innovative nano-materials and mechanical design.
*http://www.slb.com/services/completions/multistage_stimulation_systems/dissolvable_plug_and_perf/infinity.aspx

For many countries that aim to establish a nuclear power program and eventually build nuclear power plants to satisfy their energy needs, the question of whether or not to begin by establishing a non-power nuclear reactor is an issue of internal and external debate. However, recent experiences around the world have demonstrated the advantage of taking such an initial step. For countries that are true "new comers" to the nuclear energy field, the experience of building a non-power nuclear reactor that serves the needs of education and research was found to be a natural stepping-stone for initiating their nuclear power programs. Specifically, the process of building such a facility requires the development of the country's entire indigenous infrastructure including its legal and regulatory frameworks, and industrial and human resources. Furthermore, as such a project requires several years from inception to completion, this period of time may be viewed as an educational period for the country as a whole regarding issues related to nuclear reactors. Consequently, while a non-power reactor may be viewed as different technologically and in purpose from nuclear power reactors, its role as an educational and research facility may actually begin long before the day of first criticality.

Nuclear Power is developing fast in China. Peaceful and safe use of nuclear energy requires not only advanced technology, but also an extensive and intensive safety culture. A large number of personnel with nuclear safety technology and nuclear safety vision is in demand. Universities play an important role in providing nuclear engineering professionals. The presentation will introduce the nuclear engineering education in China, and specifically at Harbin Engineering University (HEU). HEU is a national key university. It has a long glorious history and good tradition. Nuclear major at HEU was founded in 1958. With the support of Chinese government and IAEA, the College of Nuclear Science and Technology (CNST) has become the largest nuclear education and training base in China. CNST annually trains and outputs about 400 students with different degrees.
The presentation will cover Nuclear education and training at HEU, including application of simulators and virtual reality tools.
Keywords: Teaching Labs; Nuclear Power Simulation Center; Virtual Reality Lab; Student Academic Activities; International Cooperation; Student Exchange

Optimization of Smart Water Injection in Sandstone Reservoirs using Different Injected Water Salinities for Enhance Oil Recovery
Water injection is one of the most common oil recovery methods, and indeed, thousands of successful water injection is operated in many oil fields. This is a proven technology, which is reliable, low-risk, and economically successful even at low recovery levels. However, optimizing its performance and extending its application specifically to sandstone oil reservoirs is an important research area, which has received less attention. Studies during these years have proven that enhanced oil recovery in sandstone reservoirs can be obtained by water injection, where the injected water has a composition different from the formation water. This "smart water" is simply made by modifying the ion composition of the water, and results in improved wetting properties of the reservoir causing an optimized oil recovery during production. The overall goal by injecting smart water into a porous sandstone reservoir is to displace remaining oil, increase the oil recovery, which at the end will provide more money for the oil companies and improving the countries welfare. It has been shown that the brine, crude oil and rock all play an important role in the oil recovery process. However, these interactions are complex and not easy to understand. Several mechanisms, both physical and chemical, behind the smart water EOR process have been proposed the last decade, but none of them has so far been generally accepted as the main one responsible for the observed salinity effect. <br />One promising trend is low salinity water injection. The impact of brine salinity on oil recovery has been an area of research in recent years. Evidence from laboratory studies, supported by some field, has distinctly shown that injecting low-salinity water has a significant impact on oil recovery, although the potential for sandstone reservoirs has not been thoroughly investigated. Recent lab and field work has illustrated that low salinity water injection can significantly improve oil recovery; while many recovery mechanisms are proposed, many questions and uncertainties remain. In this paper, we will focus on understanding physics of smart water which will improve the ability to optimize the injected water in sandstone reservoirs in the way of improving oil recovery. The "smart water" injection strategy is based on laboratory experimental observations that variation of the injected water salinity may result in large additional recovery. The idea is to inject chemistry-optimized water in terms of salinity and ionic composition into the reservoir instead of any available water that may currently be injected or planned to be injected. This process, if successfully applied, can significantly increase recovery efficiency, reserves, and production for the majority of sandstone oil reservoirs and maybe for many other oil reservoirs. Here, we will focus on sandstone oil reservoirs. Our main objective of this is to test and optimize the new process: "Smart water injection by altering the injected water salinity" for sandstone oil reservoirs aiming on enhancing oil recovery from these reservoirs and define the recovery mechanisms.

In formations where the sand is porous, permeable and well cemented together, large volumes of hydrocarbons which can flow easily through the sand and into production wells are produced through perforations into the well. These produced fluids may carry entrained therein sand, particularly when the subsurface formation is an unconsolidated formation. Produced sand is undesirable for many reasons. When it reaches the surface, sand can damage equipment such as valves, pipelines, pumps and separators and must be removed from the produced fluids at the surface. Further, the produced sand may partially or completely clog the well, substantially lead to poor performance in wells and, ultimately, inhibiting production, thereby making necessary an expensive work-over. In addition, the sand flowing from the subsurface formation may leave therein a cavity which may result in caving of the formation and collapse of the casing. Sand production in oil and gas wells can occur if fluid flow exceeds a certain threshold governed by factors such as consistency of the reservoir rock, stress state and the type of completion used around the well. The amount of solids can be less than a few grams per cubic meter of reservoir fluid, posing only minor problems, or a substantial amount over a short period of time, resulting in erosion and in some cases filling and blocking of the wellbore. Although major improvements have been achieved in the past decade, sanding tools are still unable to predict the sand mass and the rate of sanding for all field problems in a reliable form. This paper provides a review of selected approaches and methods that have been developed for sanding prediction. Most of these methods are based on the continuum assumption, while a few have recently been developed based on discrete element model. Some methods are only capable of assessing the conditions that lead to the onset of sanding, while others are capable of making volumetric predictions. Some methods use analytical formulae, particularly those for estimating the onset of sanding while others use numerical methods, particularly in calculating sanding rate.

Among the existing methods for produced water removal from oil reservoirs, water re injection into underground layers of reservoir has been considered as a suitable method. But solid particles and other pollutants in this water will damage reservoir formations. Scale deposition is one of the most serious oil field problems that inflict water injection systems primarily when two incompatible waters are involved. Formation damage in this process is similar to cross flow filtration. In this paper, external cake formation on well bore has been modeled in unsteady state conditions. For this purpose, first, the forces will be analyzed; then, fluid force and mass balances in unsteady state condition will be written. Finally, cake thickness, invasion and well fluid velocity profiles in unsteady state condition will be obtained.

Producing 64% of all emission-free electricity generation, nuclear energy is the cornerstone of the U.S. clean energy platform. During 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy produced a "Nuclear Energy Research and Development Roadmap", which is being updated. Led by the Idaho National Laboratory, the DOE laboratories with significant nuclear energy research portfolios have all participated in this effort. Coincidentally, the Generation IV International Forum published its "Technology Roadmap Update for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems" in 2014. Further, the International Energy Agency's "World Energy Outlook 2014" projects significant growth of nuclear capacity by mid-century for all low-carbon scenarios.
This presentation will summarize how these ambitious technology development goals are being translated into specific research and development (R&D) plans, including the creation of new facility, measurement and simulation capabilities. An engineering-driven, science-based approach is being employed to establish an innovative research, development and demonstration (RD&D) paradigm. The four overarching objectives of this program are:
1. Improve the reliability and performance, sustain the safety and security, and extend the life of the current reactors by developing advanced technological solutions.
2. Meet the Administration's energy security and climate change goals by developing technologies to support the development of affordable advanced reactors.
3. Optimize energy generation, waste generation, safety, and non-proliferation attributes by developing sustainable nuclear fuel cycles.
4. Enable future innovative nuclear energy options by developing and maintaining an integral national RD&D framework.
Nuclear energy R&D budget remains healthy in the U.S. while the 100 operating reactors continue to set records on capacity factors. The Department of Energy continues to invest in nuclear energy research infrastructure. Three initiatives are generating enthusiasm: (1) deployment of small modular reactors (SMRs) by early 2020's, (2) development of accident tolerant fuels for light water reactors, and (3) development of nuclear hybrid energy systems that have the potential for enhancing grid stability while substantially reducing industrial process emissions. The future is bright for the next generation of scientists and engineers that will make the deployment of advanced technologies possible.

Sand production is a major issue during oil and gas production from unconsolidated reservoirs. In predicting the onset of sand production, it is important to accurately determine the sand production mechanisms and the contributing parameters. The aim of this study was to determine sand production mechanism in an oil reservoir, identify the major contributing parameters and evaluate their effects on sanding. Sand failure mechanisms and contributing parameters were identified. The results showed that cohesive stress is the predominant sand failure mechanism. Sand strength, grains movement, shear and tensile strengths impact sand production too.

COMET is based on an incident flux response expansion method in which nuclear reactor core heterogeneities are explicitly modeled without any spatial homogenization. The method/code performs steady state criticality analysis in water reactors (BWR, PWR and CANDU) as well as prismatic reactor cores typical of fast and thermal gas and liquid metal cores. The method consists of local transport calculations of response functions, a two-level sweeping technique to determine the global eigenvalue and construction of the global fuel pin-power distribution. A stochastic neutron transport method pre-calculates local response expansion coefficients for each unique assembly/block. The use of the stochastic method for computation of the local response functions allows the heterogeneity and geometric complexity of fuel assemblies typical of any reactor to be fully modeled without using homogenized cross sections. Extensive benchmarking work in prismatic fast and thermal reactors as well as operating water reactors (BWR, CANDU and PWR) has demonstrated that COMET has similar accuracy and geometric flexibility as the stochastic method while having computational efficiency that is significantly (2-3 orders of magnitude) faster than conventional fine mesh deterministic transport and whole core stochastic methods. For example, the COMET method has been shown to accurately perform steady state (criticality) analysis in stylized 3-dimensional water reactor cores typical of BWR, PWR, and CANDU. In these cases, COMET determined the eigenvalue of each core with an error on the order of less than 100 pcm from the benchmark Monte Carlo solution, and the normalized pin fission density with an average error of less than 1%. These accurate results have been achieved regardless of the reactor core type and geometry.
In this work, we will describe the latest advancements in the COMET method and demonstrate its computational efficiency and accuracy by comparing its results to those of a direct stochastic reference method for calculating the fuel temperature reactivity coefficient and control rod worth in a new integral inherently safe light water (I2S-LWR) reactor concept. The demonstration will highlight the capability of COMET to accurately calculate reactivity coefficient and control rod worth in addition to providing a detailed solution in the whole reactor core, including individual fuel pin power distribution, in a short period of time without requiring supercomputing resources as is the case with any other neutron transport method/code.

The original function of the process of platforming is to develop heavy naphtha (HSRN), coming from the atmospheric unit of distillation with a weak octane number (NO = 44), to obtain a mixture of fuels a number octane raised by catalytically supporting specific groups of chemical reactions. The installation is divided into two sections:
Section hydrobon. Section platforming.
The rafinat coming from the bottom of column 12C2 to feed the section platforming is divided into two parts whose flows are controlled and mixed with gas rich in hydrogen.
In the bottom of the column, we obtain stabilized reformat which is aspired by their pump to ensure the heating of the column whereas a part is sent towards storage after being cooled by the air cooler and the condenser.
In catalytic catalyst of reforming, there is voluntarily associated a hydrogenating function - dehydrogenating, brought by platinum deposited, with an acid function brought by the alumina support (Al 2 0 3. The mechanism of action of this bifunctional catalyst depends on the severity of the operation, of the quality of the load and the type of catalyst.
The catalyst used in the catalytic process of reforming is a very elaborate bifunctional catalyst whose performances are constantly improved thanks to the experimental research supported on an increasingly large comprehension of the phenomena.
The American company Universel 0i1 petroleum (UOP) marketed several series of bimetallic catalysts such as R16, R20, R30 and R62 consisted Platinum / Rhenium on an acid support consisted the alumina added with a halogenous compound (chlorine).

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