Nader Vahdati

Multiphase flow in pipelines presents significant challenges, particularly in the petroleum and oil industries, where the presence of air, gas, and solid particles in liquid pipelines can lead to severe operational inefficiencies, safety hazards, severe vibrations and catastrophic failures. Traditional multiphase flow metering (MFM) methods are mostly invasive and expensive and often fall short of mapping such complex flow conditions along the entire pipeline. This study aims to address these critical issues by exploring the capabilities of a high-resolution distributed acoustic sensing (HR-DAS) system in detecting and characterizing two-phase flows under controlled conditions. A custom-designed PVC flow loop was developed to simulate various flow scenarios, including single-phase and two-phase flows with gas injection. The HR-DAS system demonstrated its potential to accurately identify two-phase flow regimes in the pipeline. Frequency analysis revealed distinctive shifts and damping effects associated with two-phase flow, providing critical insights into fluid composition and transient events like a pocket of air in a plug flow. The data collected by the HR-DAS system were juxtaposed with the accelerometer data attached to the pipe for validation. These findings highlight the novel application of the HR-DAS system for real-time multiphase flow analysis in pipelines, offering a high-resolution, multi-point, noninvasive alternative to conventional metrology techniques. Unlike existing approaches, this study demonstrates HR-DAS’s ability to map flow dynamics and detect phase transitions continuously along the pipelines without modifying the pipeline with invasive probes.

Current research investigates the material degradation behavior of thermally processed S275 mild steel under continuous stress in chloride and sulfate media at different pH values (4, 7, and 10). The mild steel samples were quenched at 1000 °C, followed by tempering at 600 °C, followed by U-bending the samples and attaching a bolt and nut to develop continuous stress according to ASTM standards. A U-bend sample without heat treatment was used as a reference. The corrosion behavior of the samples was evaluated using linear polarization resistance and potentiodynamic polarization scans. Optical microscopy, scanning electron microscope, roughness measurements, and Raman spectroscopy have been used to examine the wear behavior of S275 samples. Quenching followed by tempering caused the quasi-polygonal ferrite and granular bainite to convert to martensite. This microstructural change impacted on the material’s mechanical properties and corrosion behavior. Tempering caused a 38% increase in ultimate tensile strength and a 103% increase in yield strength. It also caused a 7–27% increase in corrosion resistance in sulfate media. The pH of the electrolyte solution also influenced corrosion. The corrosion rate of the original and tempered U-bend samples in acidic sulfate media showed approximately a 700% increase in corrosion rate compared to media alkaline and neutral sulfate media samples. The prime reason for the exponential increase in the corrosion rate is the effect of the chemical reaction of highly oxidative species on stress-induced surface defects. Raman analysis confirmed a variety of ferrous oxides and hydroxide formations on the surface of S275 steel.

This study used an external DC voltage of 1.5 V to accelerate corrosion in heat-treated S275 mild steel samples at different time intervals. LPR and EIS were used to study the corrosion behavior of original and quenched steel samples. There was only a negligible difference in the corrosion rate (CR) for the original and the quenched samples up to 30 min of voltage application in a 3.5% NaCl electrolyte media. When the exposure time increased to 60 min, the original sample showed seven times higher CR than the quenched samples. The pits on the surface of the original samples acted as cathodes, enhancing the reaction rate on the surface and increasing its CR dramatically. This led to bimodal corrosion, where the first part is led by concentration and diffusion; while, the second part is led by localized corrosion. The smaller pits on the original surface samples served as cathodic reaction centers, exacerbating corrosion. The corrosion rate of the original samples ranged from 0.8 to 7.8 mmpy; whereas, the corrosion rate of the quenched samples remained consistently around 0.8 mmpy. This trend can be observed in long-term corrosion in different metals. The uniformly oriented martensitic microstructure and the quenched samples’ small grain size prevented the enhanced ion penetration due to applied voltage. This study analyses the long-term stability of structural steel samples in marine environments by accelerating the corrosion rate by an applied external DC voltage.

The safety of cyclists, e-scooters, and micromobility devices in urban environments remains a critical concern in sustainable urban planning. A primary factor affecting this safety is the lateral passing distance (LPD) or dynamic proximity of motor vehicles overtaking micromobility riders. Minimum passing distance laws, where motorists are required to maintain a minimum distance of 1.5 m when passing a cyclist, are difficult to enforce due to the difficulty in determining the exact distance between a moving vehicle and a cyclist. Existing systems reported in the literature are invariably used for research and require manual intervention to record passing vehicles. Further, due to the dynamic and noisy environment on the road, the collected data also need to be manually post-processed to remove errors and false positives, thus making such systems impractical for use by cyclists. This study aims to address these two concerns by providing an automated and robust framework, integrating a low-cost, small single-board computer with a range sensor and a camera, to measure and analyze vehicle–cyclist passing distance and speed. Preliminary deployments in Singapore have demonstrated the system’s efficacy in capturing high-resolution data under varied traffic conditions. Our setup, using a Raspberry Pi 4, LiDAR distance sensor, a small camera, and an automated data clustering technique, had a high success rate for correctly identifying the number of close vehicle passes for distances between 1 and 1.5 m. The insights garnered from this integrated setup promise not only a deeper understanding of interactions between motor vehicles and micromobility devices, but also a roadmap for data-driven urban safety interventions.

Engine mounts serve three primary purposes: (1) to support the weight of the engine, (2) to lessen the transmitted engine disturbance forces to the vehicle structure/chassis or airplane fuselage, and (3) to limit the engine motion brought on by shock excitations. The engine mount’s stiffness must be high to control large engine motions and low to control chassis or vehicle body vibration. When hydraulic engine mounts are used, a device called a decoupler creates the dual stiffness requirement. However, numerous investigations have shown that the decoupler has the potential to rotate within its cage bound and become stuck or sink and obstruct fluid flow between the fluid chambers due to a density mismatch between the decoupler and the working fluid. In addition, most hydraulic engine mounts with a decoupler no longer act as vibration isolators but as hydraulic dampers. This study suggests a new amplitude-sensitive hydraulic engine mount design without a decoupler, where the vibration isolation of the engine mount is retained and there is a 75% reduction in the peak frequency, which further enhances the engine mount’s capabilities in comparison to the current hydraulic engine mounts with a decoupler. The new design concept and its mathematical model and simulation results will be presented.

A sensor for monitoring of the external corrosion of small-diameter aboveground oil and gas pipelines (called flowlines), based on fiber-optic strain sensing, is proposed. The working principle of our proposed sensor relies on the use of a pre-stressed sacrificial structure made of the same material as the pipeline and monitoring changes in the measured strain that occur due to deterioration caused by corrosion to the structure. We present the development of analytical equations that allow designing the sensor structure to achieve the desired strain values. The analysis was verified using commercial finite element analysis (FEA) software. The proposed sensor is simple and cost-effective and can be easily manufactured. It can be deployed on existing overground pipelines without any modification to the pipeline structure. While it is not capable of measuring the corrosion rate continuously, it can provide a measurement of the average corrosion rate over the life span of its sacrificial metal structure.

This study examines microstructural modification as an effective strategy for reducing corrosion and its impact on the mechanical properties of mild steel. The effect of heat treatment on morphology, strength, toughness, and ductility was studied using optical microscopy, SEM, Scherrer equation, Vickers’s hardness test, and tensile-strength measurement. The heat treatment changed the microstructures, grain sizes, and particle sizes of the samples. It also increased the material strength by 56% and 25% for the quenched and tempered samples, respectively. The hardness was increased to 95% by quenching. The effect of the microstructural changes on the corrosion rate in chlorine-rich and chlorine-free media at different pH was studied using linear-polarization-resistance and dynamic-polarization-resistance methods. In both media, the quenched samples showed a lower corrosion rate compared to the original and tempered samples. The heat treatment resulted in the formation of homogenous martensite with coarse grains and small particle sizes that seemed to reduce the corrosion rate significantly. It also had an impact on the corrosion mechanism of these materials. The original and tempered samples showed pitting-corrosion behavior with high corrosion rates, while the quenched samples were more susceptible to intergranular corrosion. The rate of corrosion was investigated further at different pH, and it was shown to decrease when the pH was raised. This study confirms the impact of microstructural changes on the corrosion behavior of S275 structural steel.

Additive manufacturing processes are capable of fabricating optical devices, including the production of contact lenses, waveguides, and Fresnel lenses used in a variety of applications. This study presents a novel fabrication method for high‐quality Fresnel lenses through a vat photopolymerization 3D printing method. Here, the 3D printing process is integrated with the micro/nanostructure fabrication to produce 3D optical components with imprinted micro/nanostructures in a single step. This straightforward approach allows imprinting a micro‐pattern (5 μm features size) onto the flat surface of a 3D‐printed Fresnel lens, achieve light focusing properties along with holographic rainbow effects. The printed lenses achieve focal lengths within ≤8 mm deviation from the predicted values. Such holographic Fresnel lenses are highly desirable in imaging‐based miniature spectrometers for mechanoluminescence sensoring. Thus, the masked stereolithography (MSLA) based 3D printing process can produce normal and holographic Fresnel lenses, vital in optical sensing and communication.