Fluid Flow of Polar and Less Polar Liquids through Modified Poplar Wood

Fast-growing species often have a low natural durability and can easily be attacked by fungi and insects, and therefore it is often better to preserve them before use. Permeability is a physical property in porous media that significantly affects the penetration of water- and oil-based preservatives into the texture of wood. In the present study, the specific gas permeability and liquid permeability to water and kerosene in poplar wood (Populus nigra var. betulifolia) were measured. The poplar trees were grown in plots with two spacings of 3 × 4 m and 3 × 8 m. Separate sets of specimens were also thermally modified in order to examinethe effects of this modification on gas and liquid permeability values. The results showed higher gas permeability in specimens grown in the plot with wider spacing (3 × 8 m), which was attributed to their larger vessel diameter. Kerosene demonstrated significantly higher permeability in comparison to water. This was attributed to the polar nature of water molecules, which tend to make stronger bonds with wood cell-wall polymers, ultimately delaying the movement of water through vessel elements. Thermal modification had an increasing effect on specific gas permeability. The increase was attributed to cracks that occur in the pits and wood cell wall during thermal modification, making way for the easier flow of fluids. Decreased wettability caused by thermal modification resulted in a significant increase in both water and kerosene permeability values.

Prediction of Equivalent Liquid Permeability from Gas Permeability Measurements: A Recurrent Neural Network Approach

One of the most vital reservoir properties is permeability. It is usually measured using core samples with two major measurement methods; using gas or using liquid. The purpose of this work is to use a data-driven recurrent neural network model to estimate the equivalent liquid permeability based on gas permeability. By using this model, the equivalent liquid permeability can be predicted for the permeability of core samples with rich clay minerals measured using gas (or any core sample that is measured using gas). This will give an alternative way to the currently used method (Klinkenberg method). Core sample data measurements of more than 500 cores were obtained from limestone formations. The data went through a processing step to eliminate any measurement errors. Then, the data were clustered into training, validation, and testing. After many iterations, a decision was made to have a network with four hidden layer and twenty neurons in each hidden layer, and four delays in the input and the output. The findings showed that the network had stopped training after nine epochs with a validation mean squared error (MSE) of 5.3. The model exhibited excellent performance during training, validation, and testing with an overall R2 of 0.91 which is excellent. These findings prove that the model can closely track the actual equivalent liquid permeability measurements using the gas permeability measurements data within a reasonable margin of error. With the rise of machine learning and other artificial intelligence (AI) methods as well as the potential application in the petroleum industry, these methodologies can revolutionize the industry and save time and money.

The effects of drying method on the wood permeability, wettability, treatability, and gluability of southern pine from Australia

Drying has a major impact on the viability of sawn timber production, particularly through its influence on productivity, energy usage, and product quality. Traditionally, plantation-grown southern pine structural grade timber from Australia has been dried using high temperature (≥ 180 °C) conventional batch kilns. However, the Australian industry is showing increasing interest in continuous drying kilns because of reported cost savings and potential improvements in product quality. This study investigated the differences between continuous drying and conventional drying schedules on the radial permeability, wettability, gluability, and treatability of southern pine timber from Queensland plantations. The high temperature drying resulted in significantly lower liquid permeability compared to low temperature drying; however, there were no significant differences between drying schedules for gas permeability. For combined wood surface and core data, there were no significant differences in liquid permeability between low temperature drying and continuous drying or between continuous drying and high temperature drying schedules. For earlywood after surface machining, continuous drying resulted in the greatest wettability (based on K-values), whereas for latewood after surface machining, low temperature drying produced the greatest wettability. Earlywood had greater wettability compared to latewood. Continuous drying resulted in better gluability and treatability compared to conventional drying schedules.