Cause analysis and solutions of water blocking damage in cracked/non-cracked tight sandstone gas reservoirs

After hydraulic fracturing treatment,a reduction in permeability caused by the invasion of fracturing fluids is an inevitable problem,which is called water blocking damage.Therefore,it is important to mitigate and eliminate water blocking damage to improve the flow capacities of formation fluids and flowback rates of the fracturing fluid.However,the steady-state core flow method cannot quickly and accurately evaluate the effects of chemical agents in enhancing the fluid flow capacities in tight reservoirs.This paper introduces a time-saving and accurate method,pressure transmission test(PTT),which can quickly and quantitatively evaluate the liquid flow capacities and gas-drive flowback rates of a new nanoemulsion.Furthermore,scanning electron microscopy(SEM)was used to analyze the damage mechanism of different fluids and the adsorption of chemical agents on the rock surface.Parallel core flow experiments were used to evaluate the effects of the nanoemulsion on enhancing flowback rates in heterogeneous tight reservoirs.Experimental results show that the water blocking damage mechanisms differ in matrices and fractures.The main channels for gas channeling are fractures in cracked cores and pores in non-cracked cores.Cracked cores suffer less damage from water blocking than non-cracked cores,but have a lower potential to reduce water saturation.The PTT and SEM results show that the permeability reduction in tight sandstones caused by invasion of external fluids can be list as guar gum fracturing fluid>slickwater>brine.Parallel core flow experiments show that for low-permeability heterogenous s andstone reservoirs with a certain permeability ratio,the nanoemulsion can not only reduce reverse gas channeling degree,but also increase the flowback rate of the fracturing fluid.The nanoemulsion system provides a new solution to mitigate and eliminate water blocking damage caused by fracturing fluids in tight sandstone gas reservoirs.

Sendai Water Pipeline Response to the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake

Damage caused by the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake （Mw 9.0） to transmission and distribution pipelines in Sendai City is summarized. The locations of the pipeline repairs are discussed relative to earthquake intensity, geomorphologic conditions and landform change in the developed areas of hilly land. Repair rate （repairs/km） is summarized according to pipe material and presence or absence of artificial landform change. The following findings were obtained： （1） More than 80% of the repairs took place in pipelines installed in higher lands such as hill and terrace areas consisting of hard soils; （2） Nearly all the pipe repairlocations in hill areas are where landform change was made through land development tor residential purposes over me past several decades; （3） The aforementioned repair rate was more than 3.6 times than that of other lowland areas where no landform change occurred. The heaviest concentrations of pipe repairs of vinyl chloride pipes and ductile iron pipes were observed within the boundary area between cutting and filling, having a thickness between -2.5 m and 2.5 m. Approximately 78% of the all pipe repairs occurred outside of areas where severe ground failures took place. A mechanism of pipe damage in the areas free of severe ground failure was discussed.

A 3-D SPH model for simulating water flooding of a damaged floating structure

With the quasi-static analysis method, the terminal floating state of a damaged ship is usually evaluated for the risk assessment. But this is not enough since the ship has the possibility to lose its stability during the transient flooding process. Therefore, an enhanced smoothed particle hydrodynamics（SPH） model is applied in this paper to investigate the response of a simplified cabin model under the condition of the transient water flooding. The enhanced SPH model is presented firstly including the governing equations, the diffusive terms, the boundary implementations and then an algorithm regarding the coupling motions of six degrees of freedom（6-DOF） between the structure and the fluid is described. In the numerical results, a non-damaged cabin floating under the rest condition is simulated. It is shown that a stable floating state can be reached and maintained by using the present SPH scheme. After that, three-dimensional（3-D） test cases of the damaged cabin with a hole at different locations are simulated. A series of model tests are also carried out for the validation. Fairly good agreements are achieved between the numerical results and the experimental data. Relevant conclusions are drawn with respect to the mechanism of the responses of the damaged cabin model under water flooding conditions.

Oxidative capacities of size-segregated haze particles in a residential area of Beijing

The frequent haze days around the Chinese capital of Beijing in recent years have aroused great attention owing to the detrimental effects on visibility and public health. To discover the potential health effects of the haze, oxidative capacities of airborne particles collected in Beijing during haze and clear days were comparably assessed by a plasmid scission assay. Eleven water-soluble trace elements （As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, V, Se, T1, and Zn） in the size-segregated airborne particles were quantitatively analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, and most of the water- soluble trace elements were found to mainly concentrate in the fine particle size of 0.56-1.0 μm. In comparison with clear days, the mass concentrations of 11 analyzed water-soluble trace elements remarkably increased during haze days, and the oxidative capacities determined by the plasmid scission assay were markedly elevated accordingly during the haze days under the same dosage of particles as for those during clear days. Water-soluble trace elements in airborne particles, such as Cu, V, and particularly Zn, were found to have significantly positive correlations with the plasmid DNA damage rates. Because Cu, V, and Zn have been considered as bioavailable elements, the evident increase of these elements during haze days may be greatly harmful to human health.

Monohalogenated acetamide-induced cellular stress and genotoxicity are related to electrophilic softness and thiol/thiolate reactivity

Haloacetamides（HAMs） are cytotoxic, genotoxic, and mutagenic byproducts of drinking water disinfection. They are soft electrophilic compounds that form covalent bonds with the free thiol/thiolate in cysteine residues through an S_N2 reaction mechanism.Toxicity of the monohalogenated HAMs（iodoacetamide, IAM; bromoacetamide, BAM;or chloroacetamide, CAM） varied depending on the halogen substituent. The aim of this research was to investigate how the halogen atom affects the reactivity and toxicological properties of HAMs, measured as induction of oxidative/electrophilic stress response and genotoxicity. Additionally, we wanted to determine how well in silico estimates of electrophilic softness matched thiol/thiolate reactivity and in vitro toxicological endpoints.Each of the HAMs significantly induced nuclear Rad51 accumulation and ARE signaling activity compared to a negative control. The rank order of effect was IAM 〉 BAM 〉 CAM for Rad51, and BAM ≈ IAM 〉 CAM for ARE. In general, electrophilic softness and in chemico thiol/thiolate reactivity provided a qualitative indicator of toxicity, as the softer electrophiles IAM and BAM were more thiol/thiolate reactive and were more toxic than CAM.