Effect of Initial Principal Stress Direction on the Dynamic Characteristics of Carbonate Sand

The dynamic characteristics of carbonate sand under wave loads are very important for constructions on the ocean floor. The initial principal stress direction has been known to exert some influence on the dynamic characteristics of sand during cyclic loading. In an effort to investigate this aspect of the problem, several series of cyclic undrained tests were carried out on a saturated and loose sample of carbonate sand using a geotechnical static and dynamic universal triaxial shear apparatus. In this test apparatus, a hollow cylindrical sand specimen is subjected to a simultaneous application of both triaxial and torsional modes of shear stresses, which brings about the continuous rotation of principal stress axes. The test results indicated that the initial principal stress direction has a considerable influence on the dy- namic strength of loose carbonate sand and with the increase of initial orientation of principal stress, dynamic strength will be reduced, the cyclic pore pressure increased, but the residual pore pressure reduced.

Production and Evaluation of Synthetic Carbonated Sand as an Adsorbent Media for Batch Adsorption Process

An attempt was made to improve the adsorption capability of the normal sand to be used as adsorbent for phenol and cadmium This has been done by producing a coated sand media. The coating process was done using emulsion asphalt to convert the normal sand to carbonated sand by using chemical treatment with sulfuric acid. The production process involves mixing of the sand with asphalt and an acid, then subjecting the mix to a heating process. Different mixing ratios, heating temperatures and times （activation times） were tried to obtain the optimum conditions at which the highest removal efficiency is obtained. Three types of acids were tried acetic acid, phosphoric acid and sulfuric acid. It was found that the sulfuric acid requires the lowest activation time, hence selected for the production. The removal efficiency of the produced media was significantly affected by the temperature, mixing ratio and activation heating time. The results show that, the optimum conditions for the production process are 350 , （1：2：3） （Asphalt/acid/sand） and 52 min for temperature, mixing ratio and activation heating time respectively. The final product was tested and found effective as an adsorbent media for phenol and cadmium. The removal efficiencies of these two pollutants in a batch adsorber were found 82.42% and 86.67%, respectively. The X-R diffraction and FTIR spectra tests had proved this media as an adsorbent.

Prediction of rock brittleness using nondestructive methods for hard rock tunneling

Sand production is an undesired phenomenon occurring in unconsolidated formations due to shear failure and hydrodynamic forces. There have been many approaches developed to predict sand production and prevent it by changing drilling or production strategies. However, assumptions involved in these approaches have limited their applications to very specific scenarios. In this paper, an elliptical model based on the borehole shape is presented to predict the volume of sand produced during the drilling and depletion stages of oil and gas reservoirs. A shape factor parameter is introduced to estimate the changes in the geometry of the borehole as a result of shear failure. A carbonate reservoir from the south of Iran with a solid production history is used to show the application of the developed methodology. Deriving mathematical equations for determination of the shape factor based on different failure criteria indicate that the effect of the intermediate principal stress should be taken into account to achieve an accurate result. However, it should be noticed that the methodology presented can only be used when geomechanical parameters are accurately estimated prior to the production stage when using wells and field data.

Carbon Nanotube-Textured Sand for Controlling Bioavailability of Contaminated Sediments

Sand particles textured with multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) can efficiently control the mobility and bioavailability of contaminants found in aquatic sediments. Adsorption measurements for a wide variety of aquatic contaminants (chlorinated hydrocarbons) on MWCNT-textured sand showed orders of magnitude increase in their sorption coefficients compared to traditional materials (sand) when used for physically separating contaminated sediments from overlying water. Molecular dynamics simulations performed on model experimental systems emphasize that the hydrophobic interactions of the MWCNT surfaces play a crucial role in driving the water molecules away, promoting such enhanced contaminant uptake. The MWCNT-textured sand significantly reduced the migration of contaminants from sediments to overlying water and possesses suitable parameters needed for contaminant sequestration and sediment remediation technologies. The single step and scalable procedure described here for synthesizing robust MWCNT-textured sand surfaces will provide important improvements in the field of remediation/aquatic environment restoration technologies.