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By D. G. Russell

A simple method has been developed with which flowing bottom-hole pressure data from two-rate flow tests in oil or gas wells can be analyzed to estimate the formation permeability, skin factor and average reservoir pressure. The required pressure data are obtained by observation of the transient bottom-hole pressure behavior after the stabilized producing rate of the well is changed to another, higher or lower, rate. The new method yields the same information as a conventional pressure buildup analysis, but eliminates the need for closing in the well. The analysis of a two-rate flow test is of the same degree of difficulty and requires about the same engineering time for application as a conventional pressure buildup analysrs. The extended closed-in periods experienced with conventional buildups because of long, low-rate afterproduc-tion periods are eliminated by fIow tests. Other anomalous pressure buildup effects, such as "humping" due to weli-bore phase segregation, can be successfully eliminated with the new method. Generally, flow tests of about 24 hours' duration run with conventional pressure measurement equipment are sufficient for interpretation purposes. Field testing of the two-rate flow test method has established that it is a reliable and economical method which can be used in many instances to complement or even replace conventional pressure buildup methods. INTRODUCTION The principal method for estimating formation permeability and well damage, or skin factor, in a producing oil or gas well is the analysis of shut-in bottom-hole pressure buildup data.' This familiar method has been used quite successfully by reservoir engineers for many years. It is based on the solution of the radial flow equation for constant rate conditions, and requires that the well be closed in for a sufficient period of time to obtain a clearly defined linear portion on the plot of observed t + ?t bottomhole pressure vs log t + ?/?t(where At is shut-in A? time, and t is producing time to the instant of shut-in). From the slope of the plot and other normally obtainable data, the permeability, skin factor, and reservoir pressure at infinite shut-in time (if the reservoir were infinite) can be estimated. Over the years several drawbacks have become apparent in the use of conventional shut-in pressure buildups for determining permeability and skin factor. The conventional pressure buildup interpretation theory assumes that a well is closed in at the sand face and that no production into the well occurs after shut-in. In practice, of course, the well is closed in at the surface, and inflow into the well continues until the well fills sufficiently to transmit the effect of closing in to the formation. This adjustment period is commonly referred to as the "after-production" portion of the pressure buildup. In the tight reservoirs, long, low-rate after-production periods frequently occur, and the well must be shut in for several days or, in some instances, even weeks to obtain an interpretable buildup curve.' Obviously, such long shut-in times can cause loss in current income, both from reduced oil production and from the fact that personnel and pressure measurement equipment are occupied with a single well for too long a time. In other cases, even long shut-in periods do not seem to be of much aid in obtaining an interpretable buildup." If there is considerable phase redistribution (liquid fallout or bubble rise) after a well is shut in, then curves with no interpretable portion are often obtained during the buildup. In addition to instances in which wellbore effects cause trouble, there are also cases in which the major objection to use of the closed-in pressure buildup is simply the fact that the well must be shut in. When there is no proration and when the well has limited producing capacity. closing in the well means loss of income. From the foregoing discussion it is apparent that it ib desirable to have an alternative method of obtaining the same information as that derived from a conventional buildup without the need of closing in the well. One possible solution which has been offered for this problem is the use of a bottom-hole shut-in tool' which isolates the major portion of the flow string from the formation face during the buildup. In this paper an alternative method which is frequently successful in avoiding wellbore effects and which does not require the use of special equipment is presented. A new, simple method has been developed with which the flowing bottom-hole pressure data from flow tests in oil or gas wells can be used to estimate permeability, skin factor and the average reservoir pressure. The required pressure data are obtained by observation of the transient bottom-hole pressure behavior after the stabilized production rate of the well is changed to another, higher or lower rate. The need for closing in the well is eliminated, and pressure measurement periods of only 18 to 24 hours arc usually sufficient, even in tight reservoirs. Thus, the new

By L. G. Austin

My first contact with industrial milling was during the time I worked in the electricity generating industry in the United Kingdom. In visits to power stations to investigate either deposits in the boiler furnaces or polluting deposits settling around the stacks. I had to check the performance of the vertical coal pulverizers, since poor pulverization aggravated both problems. Naturally, then, when I came to the USA in 1957 to take a PhD in fuel technology at Penn State, I was put to work to review the science of coal pulverization. After this reviewing, I was completely confused. On one hand, there was a well-developed understanding of stress-strain equations, and a rapidly developing knowledge of how stressed, brittle solids fractured, based on the Grifith crack theory. On the other hand, reading in the grinding literature gave me: -Kick's Law, which was clearly not correct in the light of modem fracture theory; -Rittinger's Law, which was also clearly not correct; -Bond's Third Law of Comminution, which was claimed to have something to do with the Grifith crack theory, but where the connection between the two was made by intuitive pseudo-scientific reasoning I could not accept; -the choice of mill motor power for the most common type of coal mill, the Raymond pulverizer, was calculated from the fan power required to move air through the mill. Although I could accept the empirical connection between the two, it made no sense from the point of view of fracture energy. Even today, most books or review chapters on size reduction start from these laws. Incorrect statements abound in the literature, such as "the Hardgrove Index is based on Rittinger's Law," which it is not, "The Bond theory states that work input is proportional to new crack tip length produced in particle breakage," which is not true, etc. My own test work showed that these "laws" did not fit the data for grinding of coal. At about this time, Epstein (1948) and Broadbent and Callcott (1956), following the original work by R.L. Brown (1941) at the British Coal Utilization Research Association, proposed describing breakage as a series of fracture stages. I took their concepts and developed the basic differential equation for a batch grinding process continuous in time, analogous to a batch chemical reactor. Robin Gardner then joined the project and did his PhD on treating batch grinding in the same way as a batch chemical reactor. He found that the basic equation had already been partially derived by Sedlatschek and Bass (1953) in Ger- many. We confirmed experimentally the validity of the equations for describing batch grinding (1962) and formulated the equation describing steady-state continuous grinding in a fully-mixed mill. At about the time this work was published, Gaudin and Meloy (1962) and Filippov (1961) independently published essentially the same equations, but without experimental proof of the validity of the concepts. I will give a brief overview of what these beginnings had led to in the design of mills for size and power, and show some of the results of this more detailed understanding of grinding processes. Concepts of Fracture Mills such as tumbling ball, rod, pebble and autogenous mills and vertical mills such as the Raymond, and E-type, apply compressive stress to lumps or particles relatively slowly. Compressive stress applied to a particle of an elastic brittle solid imparts overall strain energy to the solid and produces local regions of tensile stress, [(Fig. 1)] (Berenbaum and Brodie, 1959).

Jan 1, 1985

By K. A. Semlak, F. N. Rhines

NFILTRATION is a term used to designate that i- process by which the pores of a metal powder are filled with a relatively low-melting liquid metal through the action of capillary forces. This is accomplished in practice either by heating the porous body in contact with the solid infiltrant metal above the melting point of the latter, or by preheating the porous body separately and then dipping it into the liquid metal. The liquid, as it sweeps through the porous body, replaces the gases progressively, thus yielding a relatively dense product in a short time.' Liquid-phase sintering, which is related to infiltration, is a process by which a mixture of two or more metal powders is sintered at a temperature between the liquidus and solidus of the ultimate alloy.' According to Cannon" liquid-phase sintering can be divided into three stages which he calls liquid flow, accommodation, and solid sintering. The largest density increase occurs during the first stage, where the lower melting component melts and, driven by capillary forces, flows among the particles of the higher melting component, where, after dissolution of the bonds between the solid particles, it moves them into close packing. This happens so quickly that little has yet been learned of its mechanism. A study of the rate of capillary rise of a liquid metal in a higher melting metal-powder compact may be expected, therefore, to contribute not only to a firmer understanding of the process of infiltration as such but also to a more extensive knowledge of what occurs during the initial stage of liquid-phase sintering. Theoretical Basis In order to derive a mathematical expression of the rate of infiltration, it has been assumed that a powder compact consists of a great many parallel capillary tubes and that the rate of rise of a liquid in an average capillary channel represents the rise in the entire compact. For a straight capillary, assuming that Poiseuille's law obtains for the non-stationary state and that wetting is very rapid, Ligenza and Bernstein' have derived the following differential eauation of motion where h is the height of rise of the column of liquid at time t, R, is the radius and 1 the length of the capillary, t) and 7, the viscosities of liquid and air, respectively, p and p, the density of the liquid and air, respectively, y the liquid-gas surface tension, 0 the liquid-solid contact angle, and g the acceleration due to gravity. The term on the left of Equation [I] represents the rate of change of momentum of the contents of the capillary tube. On the right the terms represent, respectively, the forces due to a) surface tension, b) viscous resistance, c) gravity, and d) end-drag effect. Equation [I] is not amenable to explicit solution, but for a tube of sufficiently small radius, the rate of rise may be slow enough so that the rate of change of momentum and end-drag terms may be neglected. The validity of this simplification was established by Ligenza and Bernstein' by graphical differentiation of observed data obtained from organic liquids rising in glass tubes. The solution of this simplified case is:

Jan 1, 1959

CHARLES E. WILSON'S second quarterly report "Meeting Defense Goals" was encouraging on the outlook for the mining industry, as prolonged demand for minerals seems assured; but for the individual engineer things are not so rosy. Ten percent of the gross national product is going for defense but the gross national product has been increased by 9 pct since the national emergency was declared apparently a commendable rate of progress. The increased production does not seem to have had the stabilizing effect on prices it should and housewives have been revising domestic budgets upward on a quarterly basis. Government economists have reached the conclusion that more taxes and wage and salary freezing are necessary to counteract inflation.

Jan 8, 1951

By James Yancik

The Howe Coal Co. is mining the Oklahoma Lower Hartshorne bed which ranges in seam thickness from 38 to 42 in. and pitches approximately 7° to the northeast. The raw feed to the cleaning plant averages about 20% ash and 1.10% sulfur, being reduced in the cleaning process to 4.8% ash and 0.9% sulfur with a free swelling index of 8 or 8%. This coal rivals the Pocohantas seam in chemistry and coking characteristics but has better fluidity than the Pocohantas seam coal. The coal is presently being prepared for the Japanese steel market in an 85-tph pilot plant designed and constructed by Roberts & Schaefer. The cleaning-plant flowsheet is discussed in detail.

Jan 1, 1972

By Norman Gerald

THE lack of a continuous operating balance in petroleum refining, which is analyzed in this paper, is by no means a feature solely of this division of the oil industry. Serious disequilibria of a capital as well as an operating nature exist both in the producing and marketing departments, while problems in the former and to some degree the latter are complicated by political involvements. Attention has previously been directed to the unstabilizing influence of present proration formulas in stimulating unnec-essary drilling.1 While equilibrium in petroleum refining operations has been fairly well maintained in the past decade, examination of departures may prove fruitful. Economic analysis is the application of time and motion study to the functioning of management, rather than labor. Properly applied it may reveal changes in policies that would increase the utility of the properties and facilities of the industry for stockholders, employees and the public, while contributing a stabilizing influence to the general economy. The study of economic equilibrium is essentially one of measurement and interpretation, requiring adequate data and the development of a tech-nique of analysis that employs statistical and mathematical methods as a supplement to the broad descriptive phase of economics. Economic equilibrium in petroleum refining is a dual concept. It embraces both the over-all balance between total storage and total demand for major products and the internal balance between the demands and inventories of the various products. The latter is the more complex of the two for it is concerned with proportionating the supplies of the several products stemming from the joint source to the demands for the individual products which are subject to wide variations. All the products are essentially nondurable goods, and they are used both by producers and consumers but in varying proportions. Motor fuel is very largely a consumer's good, while residual fuel oil is almost entirely a producer's good, the other products falling between these extremes. The peculiar-

Jan 1, 1939

Discussion of the paper of M. E. Lormbardi,. presented at the New York meeting, February, 1915, and printed in Bulletin No. 9S, February, 1915, pp. 209 to 215. I. N. KNAPP, Ardmore, Pa.-Some years ago I made a swinging spider to carry a string of casing in a way somewhat similar to that described in this paper. The ground I tried it in was too soft for its successful operation. The spider had a central one-flange bushing to carry the slips. Under this flange and on top of the spider was a properly protected ball runway, or ball bearing, which permitted rotating the casing when it was in place and supported by the slips.

Jan 5, 1915

By A. Haas, L. Bubenicek

The Lorraine deposit of minette iron ore has been mined for more than a century. During this time, the economic conditions have changed frequently, and especially during the past decade. Thus, it has become economically prudent to proceed to new iron ore reserves with consideration of many and varied parameters. In the past, only traditional mining parameters were considered. Today, the quantity of information that must be taken into account is of such magnitude that the only practical means of data processing is by use of a digital computer and a mathematical model. One such model, based on geostatistics, was developed by G. Matheron. Much of the required input information, such as the petrology of ores, has been generated through IRSID investigations. This paper deals with several aspects of data processing in mining including information recording, reserves calculation, and stages of shrinking data in the calculation of mining iron beds, variograms, kriging, and tonnages.

Jan 1, 1969

By Fred J. Miller

FRED J. MILLER was born in Ohio, in 1857. He had a common and high school education, supplemented by personal study and special instruction. After serving a 4-year apprenticeship and working in various capacities in machine shops, he became a contributor to mechanical journals and finally a member of the editorial staff of The American Machinist, where he remained for twenty years, the last ten years as editor-in-chief of the magazine, and vice-president of the publishing company. On retiring from journalism, he was for nine years general manager of a group of typewriter factories, and was then commissioned Major of Ordnance in the U. S. Army, being stationed during most of his service at Rock Island Arsenal, where he organized the Civilian Service Division of the Arsenal. He is now a member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the War Claims Board at Washington. Major Miller became a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1890, and has always taken an active interest in its affairs, having served on a number of important committees, and as a member of Council from 1904 to 1907, inclusive. He was elected President in December, 1919.

Jan 1, 1920

By F. C. Blickensderfer

During 1914 and 1915, extensive experiments were conducted at the concentrator of The Detroit Copper Mining Co. of Arizona, at Morenci, Ariz., in order to test the relative grinding efficiencies of the Marathon, the Chilean and the Hardinge Mills. The Marathon mill used in the experiments was the first one ever built by the manufacturers; and since this was the first time that it was given a thorough tryout, with such remarkable results, the data have been assembled in the following paper and submitted in the interests of the milling profession. Description of the Flow Sheet The concentrator flow sheet, as it existed at the time of these tests, is shown in Fig. 1. The total mill feed, as delivered from the crushing plant, had as its maximum size 1-in. material. This material was screened dry on Cole Zig-Zag screens fitted with 4-mesh openings; the oversize going to one pair of coarse rolls, the undersize to five Wilfley tables fitted with Butchart National riffles. The coarse-roll product was elevated and screened wet on Zig-Zag screens fitted with 4-mesh openings, the undersize going to the five tables mentioned above and the oversize to one pair of fine rolls. The fine-roll product was elevated and screened together with the coarse-roll product; so that, before any concentrating operations took place, the total mill feed was reduced to pass a 4-mesh screen. After concentration on Butchart-riffled tables, the tailings from these tables passed to de-sliming hoppers, where two products were formed, viz., an overflow and a discharge. The discharge constituted the feed for the Chilean mills. It contained 16 per cent. slime (—200 mesh) and 3 parts of water to 1 of solids. The concentrator was equipped regularly with four Chilean mills (Monadnock type) to the unit; but, in order to

Jan 1, 1917

THE CHAIRMAN (A. F. Lucas, Washington, D. C.).-Mr. Matteson has stated that the drilling of certain deep wells has proved a failure because they were abandoned too soon. He advises drilling more wells around salt domes, in the hope of finding additional oil sands. I have had some experience on the domes and believe that by drilling shallow wells, one loses time and money. I have advanced the opinion -that by drilling central wells in the -most likely location of a dome, showing is certain weakness, a better result could be obtained. I have in mind one locality where Mr. Knapp drilled a well through the salt¬the only location that I know of on the Gulf Coast where oil was found underneath the salt. Mr. Knapp found a great deal of gas in it. The salt itself was impregnated with oil and gas; and my opinion is that in such instances, instead of drilling so many wells around a dome, if you will attack at a weak point to as great a depth as a drill will go, the results will he much better. At present we have instances where drills have penetrated to 7300 or 7400 ft. in depth. Why couldn't the rich companies that are operating around the Gulf Coast arrange to get some special drilling apparatus and drill with the rotary first for, say, 3000 to 4000 ft., always in the likely location, and then proceed with the cable? I think we need just such work. In Mr. Matteson's paper lie quotes from an author whose writings in the Federal Bulletin and in the Louisiana Bulletins have been quite extensive. He states that oil and asphalt have originally been found on the surface of those domes. I have been over and examined nearly all of those domes (not all of them, because many have been developed in the last few years) and found no such occurrence at the time; and in the old well-known humps or big hills, as they generally called them; I have never found either salines or asphalt or petroleum. In only' one instance it looked as though asphalt night have exuded out of the ground, and that was in the Sour Lake, but right in that neighborhood years previous to that a company had operated commercially-they had a little refinery there-and had found it so unprofitable that they pulled up stakes and quit.

Jan 4, 1918

By N. J. Olson, G. W. Toop

A series of equations previously derived for calculating ternary thermodynamic properties using binary data has been applied to the problem of predicting ternary phase diagrams and quaternary excess free energy. The methods are considered to be rigorous for regular ternary and quaternary systerns and empirical for nonregular systems. The equations have been used to predict ternary phase boundaries in the Pb-Sn-Zn system at 926°K and the Ag-Pd-Cu system at 1000ºK. Calculated quaternary excess free-energy values are presented for the Pb-Sn-Cd-Bi system at 773°K. A method for predicting the location of ternary phase boundaries would be a useful supplement to experimental measurements in ternary systems. This has been recognized with the considerable work that has been done to find models to predict or extend thermodynamic properties and phase diagrams in binary and ternary systems1-18 for which direct experimental measurements are limited. With the access to highspeed digital computers and mechanical plotting devices, it is currently rather easy to compare mathematical models with experimental data. The regular-solution model is consistent with systems which exhibit negative heats of mixing, positive heats of mixing, and miscibility gaps, and therefore it is applicable to simple phase diagrams. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the use of regular-solution equations to predict, empirically, phase equilibria in some types of nonregular ternary systems. Corresponding equations for regular quaternary systems are given and used to calculate empirical quaternary excess free-energy data. METHOD FOR PREDICTING THE LOCATION OF TERNARY PHASE BOUNDARIES USING BINARY DATA Meijerin1,6 has used the regular-solution model to calculate common tangent points to ternary free energy of mixing surfaces and hence to determine phase boundaries in ternary systems involving miscibility gaps. He used the following equation to calculate ternary excess free energy of mixing values: stants characteristic of the binary solutions, and Ni is the mole fraction of component i. An alternate expression which gives for regular solutions as a function of binary values of along composition paths with constant N1/N2, N2lN3, and N1/N3 may also be derived:15 ternary r xs 1 ?c-*n.Ti*.U*. This expression for is more useful for the empirical calculation of ternary excess free-energy values for nonregular systems because actual binary AFXS data may be used in the expression rather than attempting to find suitable constants for Eq. [I]. The results of this feature of Eq. [2] are illustrated in Table I where calculated excess free-energy values for the Ni-Mn-Fe system at 1232°K are compared with experimental data of Smith, Paxton, and McCabe.19 Although regular-solution equations have been shown to give calculated thermodynamic quantities which agree quite well with experiment for single-phase nonregular ternary systems,14,15 care should be exercised in the use of the equations to predict thermo-dynamic properties of multiphase ternary systems in which strong compound formation is suspected. This precaution is consistent with the simple regular-solution model which for negative values of ai_j will indicate a tendency toward compound formation but even for very large negative values of ai-jwill not give multiphase binary or ternary systems involving a distinct stable compound. Hence, calculated ternary free-energy data using Eq. [2] might be expected to vary between being rigorous and poor, in the following order, for ternary systems which are: a) regular solutions, b) nonregular single-phase liquids in which random mixing is nearly realized, c) nonregular single-phase solids, d) nonregular multiphase systems exhibiting miscibility gaps, e) nonregular multiphase systems with binary compounds but no ternary compounds, f) nonregular multiphase systems with highly stable binary and ternary compounds. The calculated data will be expected to be least accurate for the last two cases. The general method adopted in this paper involves two-dimensional plots of ternary activity curves. The principle used is that tie lines indicating two-phase equilibria join conjugate phases a and B for example, for which a1(a) = a1(B), a2(a) = a2(B), and a3(a) = a3(B). Tie lines may be determined by plotting the ternary activities of two components along an isoactivity line for the third component and the unique points where the above equalities hold may be found graphically.

Jan 1, 1970

By B. H. Bergstrom, D. D. Crabtree, C. L. Sollenberger

Experimental data is given for several natural minerals on the load required for the fracture of single specimens over a very wide size range. The experimental results are compared with published data, such as for coal specimens from 30 to 64 in. in size. Correlations of the specific energy (per unit mass) required for fracture with specimen size are given as functions of specimen shape and the experimentally observed load-size relationships. These correlations are discussed with reference to comminution theory. Comminution, through compression or impact, can result only if sufficient force, or energy, is applied to a specimen of a given size. The relation of specimen size to force requirements has not been adequately considered previously. For single particle fracture, it was previously shown 1 that the specific energy (energy, e, per unit mass, M) at fracture of single glass spheres was inversely proportional to the product size modulus, k, as indicated in the equation: e/M = C/k [1] This was found true not only for numerous glass specimens of the same nominal size but was true for all nominal sizes tested from 1/8 to 1 in. Also, it was observed that the smaller spheres required a greater specific energy at fracture than the larger spheres and consequently had a smaller product size modulus. However, the relationship giving the required fracture energy as a function of specimen size was not further elaborated upon. This paper will extend the development of the feed size effect on specific fracture energy for brittle materials. SPECIFIC ENERGY-FEED SlZE RELATIONSHIPS FROM PREVIOUS DATA For the particular glass spheres tested in the previously described experiments,' it can be shown, as on Fig. 1, that the specific energy varied inversely as the 4/3 power approximately of the feed size, F, in the span of nominal sizes ranging from 1/8 to 1 in. The load at which a 3-in. diam glass sphere (a crystal gazer's ball) was broken was within the range predicted by an extrapolation of this energy-feed size relationship. The product size distribution from this

Jan 1, 1963

By George Kunz

(Butte Meeting, August, 1913.) THE manifold inconveniences resulting from the absence of a uniform standard of mass for determining the weight of precious stones have long been obvious. This lack has been keenly felt in commercial transactions, and those who have devoted time and research to the study of historic diamonds and precious stones have had frequent occasion to deplore the absence of such a standard in the past. In a paper read in Chicago in 1893, before the International Congress of Weights and Measures, held in connection with the World's Columbian Exposition, the writer suggested dividing the carat into 100 parts, and constituting a standard international carat of 200 mg. ; that is, 5 diamond carats or 20 pearl grains to a French gram, making 5,000 carats or 20,000 pearl grains to a kilogram. He also called attention to the fact that while this would depreciate the present diamond carat or pearl grain only about 2.5 per cent., it would abolish the troublesome discrepancies between the various carat-weights now in use, and could be easily explained and understood everywhere.1 The subject of the various diamond carats, their incongruity, and the resulting confusion as to the correct weights of historic gems when definite records of them are searched for, has been fully treated by me in an extensive study of this subject in The Book of the Pearl.2 To the earnest and unremitting efforts of C. E. Guillaume, Director of the Bureau Internationale des Poids et Mesures at Sèvres, is largely clue the eventual success of this eminently desirable reform, which lie has constantly urged both by articles on the subject and by addresses delivered in Paris before the International Committee for Weights and Measures.3

Jan 7, 1913

By G. F. Ziesing, E. F. Loros, T. J. Smolik

The Golden Sunlight mine began full-scale operations in February 1983 with a conventional open-pit mine supplying 4536 t/d (5000 stpd) of milling ore. After crushing and grinding, the ore is leached with cyanide solution in large agitation tanks. Soluble gold values are removed from the sand portion of the leached ore with five stages of countercurrent washing cyclones. After thickening of the cyclone-wash overflow slurry, the gold is recovered in activated carbon with a six-stage carbon-in-pulp circuit and a five-stage upflow carbon column circuit. Pressure stripping, carbon reactivation, electrowinning, and refining complete the gold recovery process.

Jan 1, 1985

By R. L. Slobod, B. H. Caudle, R. A. Erickson

In predicting the sweepout pattern efficiency to be expected in a .secondary recovery operation, the reservoir engineer is often confronted with a situation in which part of the producing formation lies between the last row of wells and the reservoir boundary. To date, there has been little or no reference in the literalure to sweepout pattern efficiencies in such areas. This paper presents the results, of a laboratory study in which the area contacted around the edge of a reservoir injected in a five-spot pattern was determined. The X-ray shadowgraph technique was used in this study. It was found that surprisingly large portions of the reservoir area lying outside the well network are conracted by the injected fluid before, abndonment conditions are reached. In fact, it can he said that at least 00 per cent of the circa lying outside the last row of wells and within a distance of one well spacing of these wells will ultimately be contacted by the injected fluid in the case of most water floods. Frorn the results given in this paper, it is possible to estitilate not only the extent to which encroachment into these areas will occur but also the injection volume necessary to produce the wells to abnndonment conditions. INTRODUCTION While considerable work has hern done in recent years1.?.'.''.' evaluating the fraction of the reservoir contacted as a function of the mobility ratio for several different well patterns, there has been practically no mention of what happens to the oil in that portion of the reservoir which lies between the last row of wells and the reservoir boundary. In fact, the assumption is generally made that little or no recovery can he expected From this area. This assumption is incorrect and in many cases will lead to seriouq errors in calculating reservoir performance. The fraction of the area outside the regular well pattern contacted in a five-spot injection system has been studied using the X-ray technique5 to follow the progress of actual floods in porous models of reservoir elemental areas. In this paper, the method for carrying out such a study and the results showing the fraction of the area in question swept as a function of mobility ratio and the produced fluids are presented. THE REPRESENTATION OF A RESERVOIR BY ITS ELEMENTAL AREAS She portion of the reservoir lying between the edge of a reservoir and a line connecting the outermost wells may be roughly designated as the part of the reservoir outside the regular well pattern. An example of such an area is shown as the shaded portion in Fig. 1. The case of a square reservoir utilizing a five-spot injection program and with one full well spacing between the outermost wells and the boundary (Fig. 1) was selected as the single example which would provide the most insight into

Jan 1, 1956

By A. G. Loomis

IT is only within the past 10 years that serious attempt appears to have been made to improve rotary drilling fluids by the application of the principles of colloid chemistry, although the use of chemicals to control the rheological properties of clay slips has long been known in the ceramic industry. The main difficulty apparently lay in the lack of a complete analysis of all of the functions of a drilling fluid in the drilling of the well, together with the lack of adequate consideration of how colloid science could be applied to secure these ends, and particularly how apparent antithetical properties of the fluid could be compromised. Thus one analysis1 of the many requirements of a drilling fluid proved conclusively that the viscosity should be low, in order that cuttings and entrained gas might be eliminated effi-ciently in the settling ditch, while the loss in carrying capacity accompanying low viscosity could be regained by increasing either the density of the mud or the upward velocity of the mud stream in the annular space of the well, and the danger of sticking of the drill stem due to rapid settling in case of enforced suspension of drilling operations could be eliminated by enhancing the thixotropic properties of the fluid. The desired properties of the drilling fluid having thus been established, it was a natural step to treat the fluid with vis-cosity-reducing chemicals, such as salts of weak organic acids1,2-for example, sodium tannate or gallate-and to adjust the pH to the alkaline side to such a degree of thixo-tropy as would give low viscosity and low yield point under the conditions of flow prevailing in the settling ditch, but rapid gelation and high yield point when quiescent in the annular space during shut-downs. In fact, flow in the settling ditch should be just short of turbulent while flow in the well, together with the flow of mud past the cuttings, is practically always turbulent. The use of chemicals other than those mentioned, such as Calgon (sodium hexametaphosphate) and certain other phosphates together with sodium tannate, has now become standard practice and it is the consensus that this method of treatment has proved to be an important step in the development of the art of drilling oil wells.

Jan 1, 1940

By J. W. Hickman, E. A Gulbransen

The physical and chemical structure of the oxide films formed on metals and alloys is of interest in our understanding of their protective properties. According to Pilling and Bedworth,¹ if the specific volume of the oxide is equal to or greater than that of the metal, a compact or continuous structure results; if the volume of the oxide is less, a cellular or porous structure forms. With the cellular type of coating the surface layer of oxide offers no impedance to oxidation; at a given temperature the rate of oxidation is quite constant. On the other hand, the compact type of coating acts as an effective barrier to oxygen and the rate of oxidation will follow a parabolic law. The recent work of Gulbransen2 and of Leontis and Rhines3 on the oxidation of magnesium indicates that it is not necessary for the volume of the oxide to be greater than that of the metal in order that the oxidation may follow a parabolic rate law. One exception to the rule of Pilling and Bedworth¹ is noted by Scheil;4 namely, tungsten. At 500° and 700°C long-time oxidations indicate a linear rate law with time. However, Dunn's6 0xidation measurements from 700°to 1000°C indicate that a parabolic rate law is followed. The oxide is mainly yellow WO a with a thin layer of the blue oxide. Preliminary results on the oxidation of tungsten6 in the temperature range 400° to 500°C indicate that the oxidation does proceed according to a parabolic rate law. Irrespective of the actual rate law that tungsten may obey, it is of interest to compare the results obtained on the oxidation of tungsten in the thin film region with those found when the metal is scaling. A time-temperature study of the oxides formed on both molybdenum and tungsten may indicate whether there exist any peculiarities in the oxide structures of the thin film region compared with those of the scaling region of oxidation. In a recent paper the authors7 presented an investigation of the structures of the oxide films formed on the metals iron, cobalt, nickel, chromium and copper. The results of these studies are presented in graphical form as existence diagrams of the oxides on a time-temperature scale. The existence diagrams of the oxides occurring on some of the metals are simple and show few chemical transitions, but there are many cases in which the physical state of the oxide surface changes as a function of time and temperature, as evidenced by the appearance or disappearance of orientation effects and sharpness of patterns. In general an increase in temperature results in an increase in

Jan 1, 1947

By E. A. Gulbransen, J. W. Hickman

The physical and chemical structure of the oxide films formed on metals and alloys is of interest in our understanding of their protective properties. According to Pilling and Bedworth,¹ if the specific volume of the oxide is equal to or greater than that of the metal, a compact or continuous structure results; if the volume of the oxide is less, a cellular or porous structure forms. With the cellular type of coating the surface layer of oxide offers no impedance to oxidation; at a given temperature the rate of oxidation is quite constant. On the other hand, the compact type of coating acts as an effective barrier to oxygen and the rate of oxidation will follow a parabolic law. The recent work of Gulbransen2 and of Leontis and Rhines3 on the oxidation of magnesium indicates that it is not necessary for the volume of the oxide to be greater than that of the metal in order that the oxidation may follow a parabolic rate law. One exception to the rule of Pilling and Bedworth¹ is noted by Scheil;4 namely, tungsten. At 500° and 700°C long-time oxidations indicate a linear rate law with time. However, Dunn's6 0xidation measurements from 700°to 1000°C indicate that a parabolic rate law is followed. The oxide is mainly yellow WO a with a thin layer of the blue oxide. Preliminary results on the oxidation of tungsten6 in the temperature range 400° to 500°C indicate that the oxidation does proceed according to a parabolic rate law. Irrespective of the actual rate law that tungsten may obey, it is of interest to compare the results obtained on the oxidation of tungsten in the thin film region with those found when the metal is scaling. A time-temperature study of the oxides formed on both molybdenum and tungsten may indicate whether there exist any peculiarities in the oxide structures of the thin film region compared with those of the scaling region of oxidation. In a recent paper the authors7 presented an investigation of the structures of the oxide films formed on the metals iron, cobalt, nickel, chromium and copper. The results of these studies are presented in graphical form as existence diagrams of the oxides on a time-temperature scale. The existence diagrams of the oxides occurring on some of the metals are simple and show few chemical transitions, but there are many cases in which the physical state of the oxide surface changes as a function of time and temperature, as evidenced by the appearance or disappearance of orientation effects and sharpness of patterns. In general an increase in temperature results in an increase in

Jan 1, 1947

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Jan 1, 1938