Funded by the National Drilling Company (NDC), the scope of this project is a complete study of power quality issues at NDC plants like the harmonic problems, interference with other installations, waveform distortion, performance degradation due to harmonics, etc. and solutions for these problems. The main objective is to design an optimal filter for the NDC variable speed drives (AC and DC) that can be retrofitted with the drives without complicating the system, while resulting in an improved performance within the space/size constraints as specified by NDC.

Funded by GASCO, this project includes asset management, condition monitoring and detection of insulation ageing in underground medium voltage power cables. It aims at improving the reliability of distribution cable systems, which is of direct interest for the ADNOC companies. During the last decade, there have been several serious power failures and blackouts in the world which caused millions of dollars damage to the industry. Some of the failures were caused by cable failures such the 1998 accident in Auckland where the power supply was cut off for three weeks. In fact, electricity supplies at all levels are facing serious system reliability-related problems. For example, during the last five years, the X Fractionation plant of GASCO has experienced numerous cable failures, one of which was on the 3.3 kV cable feeding a pentane shipping pump, which had a great impact on the plant availability. These problems could significantly jeopardize the productivity of the oil and gas industry and as a result can be quite costly if not remedied. In order to solve these problems, new condition monitoring techniques and asset management strategies must be employed to reduce the failure rate of power and control cables. This project is funded by the PI.

The objective of this project is to increase the pumping capacity and thereby the plant productivity by upgrading the performance of the high power medium voltage current source inverter (CSI) fed induction motor drives and high power medium fixed speed drives in ADNOC group of industries. The high power medium voltage drives are employed in upstream, downstream and midstream applications in pumps, compressors, extruders, blowers and mixers. A new high performance CSI drive topology is proposed which can be easily retrofitted with the existing fixed speed motors and also with the existing conventional CSI fed drives. This project is funded by the PI.

The scope of this project is a complete study of harmonic problems of NDC drives and the design of active filters to eliminate the harmonics. The active filter will be tested on an experimental set up at PI laboratory. This project is funded by the PI.

Real Time Simulation of power system's dynamics and transients can provide more accurate results than off line simulation. Most power networks consist of many dynamic devices with reactive power consumption. Shortage of reactive power causes instability in voltage and ultimately voltage collapse. To compensate for the reactive power and stabilize voltage, large size SVC is installed in substations. The primary function of SVC is controlling the system voltage. This requires careful consideration and verification of the effect of SVC on other components, especially the large induction motors. To study the effect, RTDS can be an excellent tool to simulate the system for the above investigation.

Understanding and controlling coupled axial-bending-torsion vibrations and contact instability in oil and gas well drilling is a subject of considerable interest. In this project, it is proposed to study the dynamics and control of drill strings. The drill string can be modeled as an underactuated nonlinear dynamical system interacting with a complex environment. Current technologies mostly treat the drill string as an open-loop system. By using insights from the mechanical mode and innovative sensing techniques, it is proposed to investigate a control theoretic framework to stabilize the drill-string enabling energy efficient use of drill strings with longer life spans. The proposed strategies will be studied on a drill-string testbed at PI and UMD to validate the analytical findings and suggest possible strategies to mitigate drill-string failures. This project is funded through the PI-UMD Partnership.

Objectives:

1. Design a high-performance image enhancement algorithm for underwater images
2. Analyze of performance using both real and synthetic images
3. Implement the enhancement algorithm as a real-time (online) process
4. Test system in inspection applications relevant to the oil industry.

Conducted along with Dr. John Oakley & Ms. Halleh Mortazavi from the University of Manchester, this project is concerned with methods for real-time enhancement of images from underwater cameras. The applications include inspection problems, for example of oil pipelines and offshore structures, and underwater navigation and search that arise in the operations of ADNOC. The camera is typically mounted on a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) connected by cable to a surface vessel. The illumination is provided by searchlights mounted on the ROV. In almost all cases the visibility is limited by mineral particles which are either stirred up from the sea bed or held in suspension. The main cause of the loss in visibility is back-scattered light which is scattered towards the camera by the suspended particles. The backscatter can be many times larger in magnitude than the light that is reflected from objects of interest. This project is jointly funded by the PI and U Manchester.

Partial discharge (PD) in motors and other electric machines can have adverse effects on the insulation and hence on the functionality of the machine. During the last few years, ADNOC plants experienced several motor failures, which greatly affected plant availability and productivity. The objectives of this project are to:

1. Develop an analytical model of PD pulse propagation in low and medium voltage motors fed by power electronic impulses
2. Identify the optimal detection bandwidth in such systems
3. Compare obtained results with those achieved experimentally.
   

This project investigates the reliability of power systems in deregulated environments and in the presence of renewable energy sources. It also uses modern analysis techniques including fuzzy set theory.

The objective of this project is to model and control the hydrodynamically induced forces on offshore platform using magnetorheological (MR) dampers. MR dampers are currently used for vibration reduction of seismic structures as well as heavy machinery.

The objective of this project is to obtain extended characteristic data from different solar energy technologies and produce a Neural Network (NN) model to predict important characteristics such as maximum power output. The NN model will then be used in a preliminary study to implement solar energy in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). With high demand for oil production, "green" EOR is of great interest to ADNOC and its operating companies.

The objective is to design a novel automatic cleaning device used to enhance the output power of PV modules especially for offshore applications where efficiency and reliability are critical issues. The design should also be capable of repelling birds from approaching near the PV systems, nesting and therefore preventing bird droppings. The system should require minimum power and water and be controlled by any suitable means which has the ability of simple program upgrading and low power consumption.

PV technology used. The novelty of this device lies in the fact that it is integrated within the test bed keeping in mind the limitations in size, area available and cost. Cost reduction for such devices could be one step in tackling the worldwide engineering challenge in making solar power an economic solution.

PV technology used. The novelty of this device lies in the fact that it is integrated within the test bed keeping in mind the limitations in size, area available and cost. Cost reduction for such devices could be one step in tackling the worldwide engineering challenge in making solar power an economic solution.

The UAE is showing growing interest in alternative energy technology. However, before adaptation of a new technology, it is necessary to carry out a field study concerning the technology's suitability to local circumstances. This research is investigating the practical results regarding the effect of temperature, humidity and most importantly dust on the performance of thin film Photovoltaic technologies (Copper Indium Selenide (CIS).

This project addresses a problem of direct interest to ADNOC and most other oil companies for reservoir management and production optimization. These companies are increasingly faced with the need for real-time and accurate determination of the constituents of their oil production. Generally, oil wells produce water and gas together with oil. This mixture of the three components makes the measurement of each individual component very complicated. Conventional methods require the produced elements to settle in order to measure the percentages of each element. These methods however do not allow for real time on-line measurements, a requirement that is crucial for effective control of production. Furthermore, they require costly tank separators which are also unpractical in offshore fields, which represent a significant oil reserve in UAE. Recently, more advanced and compact meters have started to emerge in various oil fields. However, most of them are very costly (and thus can't be widely deployed in every single well bore), radioactive (unsafe and undesirable in harsh and hazardous areas) and/or inaccurate in case of high water-cut (this is frequently the case in aging oil fields) or high gas fraction (as the gas is usually abundant in oil fields). To address these problems, we propose to develop an effective and reliable non-radioactive apparatus to determine in real-time oil-water-gas flow rates with a relative error of less than 10%. A particular focus for high water-cut and high gas fraction will be considered. The meter would also be provided with sand measurements and leak detection capabilities to alleviate the risks of instrument damage and false readings.

In ADNOC oil fields, heavy crude oil presents problems in oil recovery and production since a high percentage of discovered oil (i.e. more than 50%) is left in the ground due to the lack of effective extraction technology. One of the most widely deployed solutions used for extracting such oils is based on steam injection which involves introducing very hot water vapor which would melt the crude oil and render it easily transportable. Compared to the traditional first oil recovery methods, this technique has significantly contributed to improving oil productivity by a significant percentage (e.g. productivity increases ranging usually from 10 to 85%). However, it requires a huge amount of energy to supply a costly power station which is difficult to move from one well to another. This issue becomes clearly of a higher concern in offshore fields which represent a non-negligible reserve of oil in the UAE. In this project, a closed-loop electrical-based adaptive heat generator apparatus for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) is proposed. Its principle is to adaptively heat the crude oil of selective wellbore regions with waves, the frequency of which is adjusted depending on some bottomhole data (e.g. pressure, temperature, and water-cut of fluid surrounding the device). For instance, in case the formation surrounding the device features low water-cut and high pressure, then local heating using high frequency waves would be performed. On the other hand, in case this formation features a high water-cut and is expanded over a relatively large region, then remote heating with lower frequency waves would be performed. Overall, there is a clear consensus among researchers in the area of EOR on the effectiveness of grabbing even rough information on the constituents of the well prior to proceed for oil recovery. The device consists of an array of several electrical heaters (exciters), the energy of which is provided by a frequency-programmable power source (ranging from few Hz to GHz). Each heating element of this array autonomously radiates fields into the deposit to generate a continuous and steady high temperature. The resulting reduction in the viscosity of the target crude oil causes the oil to be easily pumped up to the surface. All the signals and power supplies would be provided at the surface by the transmitter unit via armored electrical cables (wire line).

In this project we plan to develop a genuine technique for pipeline inner surface inspection using specially designed sensors with wireless capability. We plan to build a computer vision system and develop the necessary image processing software. This technique is expected to remedy existing problems and allow the industry to have better inspection techniques for pipes even with bends and blockages. Our main goal is to provide ADNOC and its OPCOs with the right technologies and investigative approaches so that they can make rational and planned decisions on the need for replacement or rehabilitation of pipelines regardless of their sizes and diameters. This will greatly reduce failures and production losses in addition to reducing the risk of pollution. Our laboratory will be involved in developing a special smart and wireless sensor network to continuously monitor inner pipeline surfaces. These tasks will be carried out remotely through a new methodology of measurements and testing that will be developed in addition to the necessary software implementation. This project is funded by the PI.