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The performance of proppants is critical to the effectiveness of reservoir hydraulic fracturing. Traditional methods such as sieving and visual inspection are commonly used in proppant production lines, at fracturing sites, and in research institutions to assess particle size and shape. However, these methods are highly subjective, inefficient, and prone to significant random errors. To address these issues, an automated particle size and shape detection method based on image processing algorithms was developed, leading to the design of a proppant parameter detection system. The system's detection results on the Krumbein–Sloss chart closely align with standard templates, with a maximum error of only 3%. This method enables precise particle extraction and analysis from images, accurately determining particle size and shape parameters. Comparative experiments conducted on commonly used quartz sand samples in 20/40 mesh, 30/50 mesh, and 40/70 mesh specifications demonstrated that the new method can evaluate the particle size without damaging the particles; the detection process does not create proppant waste, has environmental benefits, and can reduce the cost of professional inspection personnel, with the detection efficiency improved by over 200 times compared to traditional sieving and visual inspection methods, with repeatability errors within 1.9%. This study introduces a novel approach to particle size and shape detection, providing technical references for optimizing proppant selection, enhancing material quality control for hydraulic fracturing, and reducing costs while improving efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydraulic fracturing is a commonly used technical tool in the extraction process of unconventional shale gas reservoirs. However, the damage caused by fracturing fluids to the proppant fracture inflow conductivity during the whole fracturing, reentry, and production process is very obvious, which affects the fracturing and production increase effect. Conventional proppant fracture inflow conductivity test experiments only use a single-phase fluid in the gas or liquid phase to complete the test and evaluation, and few scholars have paid attention to the change rule of inflow conductivity during the whole fracturing and re-discharge process. Therefore, combined with the characteristics of shale gas production, we simulated the whole fracturing–returning–production process, carried out three consecutive phases of proppant fracture inflow conductivity test experiments, and investigated the change rule of fracture inflow conductivity during the whole process. The results show that under the condition of closure pressure 35 MPa, after distilled water simulated fracturing, the damage to mineral sand flow-conducting capacity is as high as 81.55% due to the effect of shale hydration. During the simulated return discharge process, the gas-measured flow-conducting capacity experiments were carried out at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of the initial gas-measured discharge, and the fracture flow conductivity kept rising, and its maximum recovery value was 54.67% of the original one; the experiments simulated the fluctuations caused by changes in the wellbore flow pressure on the closure pressure in the process of production as well as the influence of fracture flow-conducting capacity under the condition of long-term soaking of the proppant, and the results of this study are useful for the design of fracturing programs and high-efficiency fracturing of shale gas. The results of this study have certain reference significance for the design and efficient development of shale gas reservoir fracturing programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Functional coatings, including organic and inorganic coatings, play a vital role in various industries by providing a protective layer and introducing unique functionalities. However, its design often involves time‐consuming experimentation with multiple materials and processing parameters. To overcome these limitations, data‐driven approaches are gaining traction in materials science. In this paper, recent advances in data‐driven materials research and development (R&D) for functional coatings, highlighting the importance, data sources, working processes, and applications of this paradigm are summarized. It is begun by discussing the challenges of traditional methods, then introduce typical data‐driven processes. It is demonstrated how data‐driven approaches enable the identification of correlations between input parameters and coating performance, thus allowing for efficient prediction and design. Furthermore, carefully selected case studies are presented across diverse industries that exemplify the effectiveness of data‐driven methods in accelerating the discovery of new functional coatings with tailored properties. Finally, the emerging research directions, involving integrating advanced techniques and data from different sources, are addressed. Overall, this review provides an overview of data‐driven materials R&D for functional coatings, shedding light on its potential and future developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When using electromagnetic detection method to detect the damage of mine wire rope, the detection signal contains a lot of noise. Moreover, there are spikes and mutations interference, which increase the difficulty of damage identification. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the noise of the original detection signal. The commonly used Fourier transform cannot process the operating wire rope detection signal. The wavelet transform has problems of poor translation invariance and frequency aliasing, which affect the detection accuracy. This paper proposes a method for mine wire rope damage detection based on dual-tree complex wavelet transform. Firstly, a dual-tree complex wavelet high and low pass filter is constructed by Q-shift method, and the original signal is decomposed by 3-layer dual-tree complex wavelet to obtain the high and low frequency signal components. Secondly, a soft threshold method with minimax variance is used to reduce the noise of the decomposed signal. Finally, the noise reduction signal is reconstructed. A wire rope damage detection test platform is built in the laboratory environment to verify the noise reduction performance of the wire rope damage detection signal processing method based on dual-tree complex wavelet transform. The results show that the method can reduce the number of spikes and mutations in the detection signal effectively and make the signal stable. The noise reduction effect is better than that of classical wavelet transform. The method increases the signal peak value at the singularity point, which is beneficial to the subsequent feature extraction.

Low-permeability sandstone reservoirs have become an important exploration and reserve increase target in China, but most low-permeability sandstone reservoirs with high wax content and high freezing point will reduce their production after fracturing injection, especially in winter. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the field fracturing construction measures and reservoir characteristics. Generally, the fracturing fluid injected by fracturing operation is at room temperature, even lower than 5 °C in winter, and the viscosity and freezing point of crude oil in this block are high. Therefore, the research focuses on the properties of crude oil and the influence of temperature reduction on oil-bearing cores. In order to find out the mechanism of reservoir cold damage, this paper first observed the pore throat of rock sample slice after displacement experiment, and found that there were black paraffin particles in some pore throats; then the distribution of core pore size after displacement was analyzed by T2 spectrum of NMR, and it was found that the proportion of small pores increased gradually with the decrease of temperature. Finally, the displacement experiment is used to simulate the change of permeability in the process of formation cooling and heating after field fracturing. The permeability of crude oil is tested by changing the ambient temperature of displacement experiment. It is found that the permeability before cooling is larger than that after heating recovery, and the process is irreversible. Therefore, the cause of cold damage is that the injection temperature of fracturing fluid is far lower than the formation temperature and the precipitation of paraffin during the cooling process of crude oil. For reservoirs with high wax content and high freezing point, paraffin precipitation caused by cold damage has a great influence on formation permeability, and cold damage can be prevented by changing injection fracturing fluid temperature or adding paraffin inhibitor.

The evolution of the microstructure and hardness changes in the Au-15Ag-12Cu-6Ni alloy during the processes of cold rolling and annealing were investigated and the heat treatment regimen for the alloy was optimized in this article. The hardness of the alloy continuously increases with the cold rolling reductions, leading to continuous deformation of the grains during the cold rolling process, ultimately resulting in smaller grain sizes. Subsequent annealing induces recovery and recrystallization, achieving complete recrystallization at 700 °C. An intriguing softening effect is observed after annealing at 700 °C, manifesting in a significant reduction in hardness to 238 (Hv0.5). The cold deformation texture of the alloy aligns with the recrystallization texture type, exhibiting only a certain degree of angular deviation. This is primarily characterized by <111>//RD texture and a texture deviating 60° from RD towards TD. The performance of the finished sheet improves with the precipitation of ordered phases AuCu after a 300 °C heat treatment for 0.5 h, resulting in a remarkable hardness of 380 (Hv0.5). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to consummate the slotted liner design theory lagging behind application, the parameter optimization model of slotted liner completion for horizontal well with steam huff and puff is established based on the analysis on heat and mass transfer during steam injection, steam soaking and well production periods. The effects of 7 parameters on horizontal well productivity are studied, including slot width, liner diameter, slot density, slot length, slot number per slot unit, slot number per circle and slot blockage. Results show that productivity ascends with the increase of slot width, liner diameter, slot density, slot length and slot number per slot unit, and the variation gradually goes to be smooth. Slot length, slot density and slot blockage have significant influence on productivity, and slot blockage may lead to productivity loss as high as 65%. Slot width can be bigger than the one designed by "sand bridge" principle at high oil price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying target proteins for bioactive molecules is essential for understanding their mechanisms, developing improved derivatives, and minimizing off-target effects. Despite advances in target identification (target-ID) technologies, significant challenges remain, impeding drug development. Most target-ID methods use cell lysates, but maintaining an intact cellular context is vital for capturing specific drug-protein interactions, such as those with transient protein complexes and membrane-associated proteins. To address these limitations, we developed POST-IT (Pup-On-target for Small molecule Target Identification Technology), a non-diffusive proximity tagging system for live cells, orthogonal to the eukaryotic system. POST-IT utilizes an engineered fusion of proteasomal accessory factor A and HaloTag to transfer Pup to proximal proteins upon directly binding to the small molecule. After significant optimization to eliminate self-pupylation and polypupylation, minimize depupylation, and optimize chemical linkers, POST-IT successfully identified known targets and discovered a new binder, SEPHS2, for dasatinib, and VPS37C as a new target for hydroxychloroquine, enhancing our understanding these drugs' mechanisms of action. Furthermore, we demonstrated the application of POST-IT in live zebrafish embryos, highlighting its potential for broad biological research and drug development., Competing Interests: YS, CL, XD, WL, XD, WG, MS, YG, YY, HZ, YJ No competing interests declared, (© 2024, Sun, Li et al.)