Investigation on the Effect of Geometrical and Geotechnical Parameters on Elongated Offshore Piles Using Fuzzy Inference Systems

Among numerous offshore structures used in oil extraction, jacket platforms are still the most favorable ones in shallow waters. In such structures, log piles are used to pin the substructure of the platform to the seabed. The pile’s geometrical and geotechnical properties are considered as the main parameters in designing these structures. In this study, ANSYS was used as the FE modeling software to study the geometrical and geotechnical properties of the offshore piles and their effects on supporting jacket platforms. For this purpose, the FE analysis has been done to provide the preliminary data for the fuzzy-logic post-process. The resulting data were implemented to create Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) classifications. The resultant data of the sensitivity analysis suggested that the orientation degree is the main factor in the pile’s geometrical behavior because piles which had the optimal operational degree of about 5° are more sustained. Finally, the results showed that the related fuzzified data supported the FE model and provided an insight for extended offshore pile designs.     

Application of the coral health chart to determine bleaching status of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Acropora downingi</Emphasis> in a subtropical coral reef

The ‘Coral Health Chart’ has become a popular tool for monitoring coral bleaching worldwide. The scleractinian coral Acropora downingi (Wallace 1999) is highly vulnerable to temperature anomalies in the Persian Gulf. Our study tested the reliability of Coral Health Chart scores for the assessment of bleaching-related changes in the mitotic index (MI) and density of zooxanthellae cells in A. downingi in Qeshm Island, the Persian Gulf. The results revealed that, at least under severe conditions, it can be used as an effective proxy for detecting changes in the density of normal, transparent, or degraded zooxanthellae and MI. However, its ability to discern changes in pigment concentration and total zooxanthellae density should be viewed with some caution in the Gulf region, probably because the high levels of environmental variability in this region result in inherent variations in the characteristics of zooxanthellae among “healthy” looking corals.     

A unified formulation for generalized oilfield development optimization

Oilfield development involves several key decisions, including the number, type (injection/production), location, drilling schedule, and operating control trajectories of the wells. Without considering the coupling between these decision variables, any optimization problem formulation is bound to find suboptimal solutions. This paper presents a unified formulation for oilfield development optimization that seeks to simultaneously optimize these decision variables. We show that the source/sink term of the governing multiphase flow equations includes all the above decision variables. This insight leads to a novel and unified formulation of the field development optimization problem that considers the source/sink term in reservoir simulation equations as optimization decision variables. Therefore, a single optimization problem is formulated to simultaneously search for optimal decision variables by determining the complete dynamic form of the source/sink terms. The optimization objective function is the project net present value (NPV), which involves discounted revenue from oil production, operating costs (e.g. water injection and recycling), and capital costs (e.g., cost of drilling wells). A major difficulty after formulating the generalized field development optimization problem is finding an efficient solution approach. Since the total number of cells in a reservoir model far exceeds the number of cells that are intersected by wells, the source/sink terms tend to be sparse. In fact, the drilling cost in the NPV objective function serves as a sparsity-promoting penalty to minimize the number of wells while maximizing the NPV. Inspired by this insight, we solve the optimization problem using an efficient gradient-based method based on recent algorithmic developments in sparse reconstruction literature. The gradients of the NPV function with respect to the source/sink terms is readily computed using well-established adjoint methods. Numerical experiments are presented to evaluate the feasibility and performance of the generalized field development formulation for simultaneous optimization of the number, location, type, controls, and drilling schedule of the wells.     

Modeling core-scale permeability anisotropy in highly bioturbated “tight oil” reservoir rocks

A high-resolution simulation model of a heterogeneous low-permeability rock sample is used to investigate the effects of physical and biogenic sedimentary structures on scaling and anisotropy of absolute permeability at the core scale. Several simulation sub-samples with random locations and volumes were also selected for evaluation of the effects of scale and lithological composition on the calculated permeability. Vertical and horizontal permeability values (from whole core simulation) are in good agreement with routine core analysis (RCA) measurements from offsetting cores. Despite relatively good reservoir quality associated with geobodies of biogenic and relic bedding structures, results from the full diameter core simulation demonstrate that their limited volumetric abundance and restricted connectivity prevent these features from controlling fluid flow in these rocks. In fact, permeability seems to be dominated by the tighter encasing matrix, which exhibits average permeability values very close to those reported from RCA. Geometric averaging offers a better representation for the upscaling of horizontal permeability datasets; whereas, both geometric and harmonic averaging work similarly well for the vertical measurements. The methodology used in this work is particularly applicable to the detailed characterization of reservoir rocks with a high degree of heterogeneity caused by biological reworking and diagenesis.     

Detrital zircon provenance analysis in the Zagros Orogen,SW Iran: implications for the amalgamation history of the Neo-Tethys

International Journal of Earth Sciences - The Zagros Orogen developed as a result of Arabia–Eurasia collision. New in situ detrital zircon U–Pb and Hf isotopic analyses from a Cenozoic...     

An integrated object-based image analysis and CA-Markov model approach for modeling land use/land cover trends in the Sarab plain

The present paper is an attempt to integrate a semi-automated object-based image analysis (OBIA) classification framework and a cellular automata-Markov model to study land use/land cover (LULC) changes. Land use maps for the Sarab plain in Iran for the years 2000, 2006, and 2014 were created from Landsat satellite data, by applying an OBIA classification using the normalized difference vegetation index, salinity index, moisture stress index, soil-adjusted vegetation index, and elevation and slope indicators. The classifications yielded overall accuracies of 91, 93, and 94% for 2000, 2006, and 2014, respectively. Finally, using the transition matrix, the spatial distribution of land use was simulated for 2020. The results of the study revealed that the number of orchards with irrigated agriculture and dry-farm agriculture in the Sarab plain is increasing, while the amount of bare land is decreasing. The results of this research are of great importance for regional authorities and decision makers in strategic land use planning.     

Estimating geometrical parameters of cylindrical targets detected by ground-penetrating radar using template matching algorithm

In the current research, the ground-penetrating radar (GPR) method has been employed to identify physical and geometrical parameters of buried cylindrical structures using the pattern recognition approach. To achieve this goal, the well-established mathematical relationships between geometrical parameters of cylindrical target (radius, burial depth, and horizontal location) and the associated GPR hyperbolic response characteristics are employed using the template matching method. In order to validate the applicability of the template matching method in providing estimates of such parameters, the method is first examined on GPR responses of synthetic models with known geometrical parameters followed by applying on real data using two different similarity criteria including 2-D spatial convolution and normalized cross correlation in the wave number domain. In the first step, the GPR responses of 71 synthetic models encompassing one, two, and three horizontal cylinders were produced using the improved 2-D finite difference in frequency domain. Then, appropriate preprocessing sequences to reduce random noise caused by forward modeling were applied on synthetic data. The proposed algorithm applied on several synthetic model responses could estimate the known geometrical parameters of the buried cylinders with acceptable accuracy (maximum error of 15%). The template matching algorithm was also used to extract geometrical parameters of water and wastewater pipes buried in Imam Hossein Square, Isfahan city, as real GPR data. Depending on environmental conditions and subsurface host formation, the real GPR data normally contain a variety of noises; therefore, a series of appropriate objective preprocessing and processing stages were designed in order to apply on real GPR images before deploying template matching algorithm. The applicability of the template matching algorithm on real data and validity of the estimated parameters were proved based on assessing the accuracy of the estimated geometrical parameters of respective pipes through GPR response versus the measured parameters. The proposed algorithm was designed in such a way that all steps of estimating geometrical parameters of buried cylindrical targets are automatically carried out.     

Geochemistry and origin of Dehoo manganese deposit,south Zahedan,southeastern Iran

Dehoo manganese deposit is located 52 km to the south of Zahedan in Sistan and Baluchestan Province, southeastern Iran. This deposit that lies in the central part of the Iranian Flysch Zone is lenticular in shape and lies above the micritic limestone-radiolarite cherts of the upper Cretaceous ophiolite unit. It is hosted within the reddish to brown radiolarite cherts and in places interlinks with them, so that the radiolarite chert packages play a key role for Mn mineralization in the region. Investigated ore-paragenetic successions and the geochemical characteristics of the Dehoo deposit were studied by means of major oxide, trace, and rare earth element (REE) contents that provide information as to the mineral origin. Strong positive correlations were found between major oxides and trace elements (Al₂O₃-TiO₂, r = 0.95; TiO₂-MgO, r = 0.94; Fe₂O₃-Al₂O₃, r = 0.90; MgO-Al₂O₃, r = 0.84; MgO-Fe₂O₃, r = 0.88; Fe₂O₃-TiO₂, r = 0.91; Fe₂O₃-K₂O, r = 0.74; Al₂O₃-K₂O, r = 0.69; Al₂O₃-V, r = 0.72; TiO₂-V, r = 0.73, and MgO-V, r = 0.69) that testify to the contribution of mafic terrigenous detrital material to the deposit. Chondrite-normalized REE patterns of all ore samples are characterized by negative Ce (0.06–0.15, average 0.10) and slightly positive Eu (0.29–0.45, average 0.36) anomalies. Based on ratios of Mn/Fe (average 56.23), Co/Ni (average 0.33), Co/Zn (average 0.38), U/Th (average 3.40), La/Ce (average 1.45), La_n/Nd_n (average 2.16), Dy_n/Yb_n (average 0.33), and light REE/heavy REE (average 8.40; LREE > HREE), as well as Ba (average 920 ppm) and total REE contents (average 6.96 ppm) negative Ce and positive Eu anomalies, Dehoo could be considered a predominantly submarine hydrothermal Mn deposit complemented by terrigenous detrital mafic material.     

A Workflow for Static Reservoir Modeling Guided by Seismic Data in a Fluvial System

Realistic and accurate static geologic models are an essential element needed to predict the behavior of subsurface reservoirs and play an important role in petroleum engineering. Data used in the development of a static geologic model are gathered from various sources, such as seismic, log, and core data, each of them providing information on different physical properties of interest and with varying degrees of resolution. Compiling all data from various sources into a single representation of the subsurface formation of interest is a daily challenge for many petroleum geologists and engineers. This paper describes a framework to develop and select process-mimicking models that are consistent with available seismic attributes, namely impedance. Using a process-mimicking modeling package, 75 models of a fluvial meandering system are generated, one of which is chosen as the “true” model and masked thereafter. The implemented selection method relies on the degree of similarity in the histogram of representations of clusters of all possible patterns in the seismic impedance domain based on each process-mimicking model and that of the “true” model at several resolutions. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the use of a weighted average divergence distance across multiple levels to select process-mimicking models that honor seismic data the best.     

Geochemical,isotopic and hydrological mass balance approaches to constrain the lake water–groundwater interaction in Dal Lake,Kashmir Valley

It is important to have qualitative as well as quantitative understanding of the hydraulic exchange between lake and groundwater for effective water resource management. Dal, a famous urban fresh water lake, plays a fundamental role in social, cultural and economic dynamics of the Kashmir Valley. In this paper geochemical, isotopic and hydrological mass balance approaches are used to constrain the lake water–groundwater interaction of Dal Lake and to identify the sources of lake water. Water samples of precipitation (n = 27), lake water (n = 18) and groundwater (n = 32) were collected across the lake and its catchment for the analysis of δ¹⁸O and δ²H. A total of 444 lake water samples and 440 groundwater samples (springs, tube wells and dug wells) were collected for the analysis of Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, HCO₃ ^?, SO₄ ^2?, Cl^?, NO₃ ^?, Na⁺ and K⁺. Water table and lake water level were monitored at 40 observation locations in the catchment. Water table map including pH and EC values corroborate and verify the gaining nature of the Dal Lake. Stable isotopes of lake water in Boddal and Gagribal basins showed more deviation from the global meteoric water line than Hazratbal and Nigeen basins, indicating the evaporation of lake water. The isotopic and geochemical mass balance suggested that groundwater contributes a significant proportion (23–40%) to Dal Lake. The estimated average groundwater contribution to Dal Lake ranged from 31.2 × 10³ to 674 × 10³ m³ day^?1 with an average of 276 × 10³ m³ day^?1. The study will be useful to delineate the possible sources of nutrients and pollutants entering the lake and for the management of lake water resources for sustainable development.