Características do aço API X70 utilizado em tubos de transporte de petróleo e gás

Having in mind that petroleum's history presents a huge growth, the exploration and production areas have been receiving lots of investments, in order to attend the increasing demand for gas and petroleum. Looking through that scenario, new technologies have been evolving in favor of discovering new natural petroleum deposits and act with effectiveness in truly deep waters without giving up the worldwide best operational security practices. The use of rigid pipes in marine installations have been rising quickly and, thanks to this reality, the many storage and pipe launching forms became study objects and are getting improved. The analysis of steel API X70 characteristics, proving that they are suitable for use in pipes developed to transport gas and petroleum is the theme of this presentation. A tensile test was conducted to determine the base metal's mechanical properties, draining's tension, traction's resistance, elasticity's modulus and maximum tension. An aspect that is concerning too is the metallographic analysis, in order to determine the studied iron's microstructure. Results of analyzes showed that the steel has high resistance, with good capacity for deformation and well defined yield point, concluding suitable for the application in question

Estudo do efeito Bauschinger em tubos de aço API 5l x70 aplicados no transporte de petróleo e gás

Despite the growing concern in seeking more sustainable energy sources, oil demand is likely to grow in coming years. To keep up with this growth, the oil industry has increasingly invested in innovation and efficiency. Knowing that, new technologies have been developed to explore deeper waters, without giving up the best practices in worldwide operational safety. The use of rigid pipelines in deepwater offshore facilities is increasing quickly and because of this, the ways of storing and launching pipe have been studied and perfected. In this paper the Bauschinger effect on API 5L X70 steel was analyzed proving that there was a reduction in yield strength when an effort was applied in a previous direction, then an effort was then applied in the opposite direction. To observe this phenomenon, the tensile test was conducted to determine the mechanical properties of the base metal, such as yield stress, tensile strength, elasticity and maximum tensile, so then compare it with the results obtained in the Bauschinger Effect Test. The analysis results showed that the steel had high resistance, with good plastic deformation capacity without failing, well-defined yield point, showing itself appropriate for the operation of oil and gas pipes

The effect of flex fuel vehicles in the Brazilian light road transportation

The retaking of the ethanol program in the year 2003 as a fuel for light road transportation in Brazil through the introduction of flex fuel vehicles fleet was a good strategy to overcome the difficulties of the ethanol production sector and did work to increase its market share relative to gasoline. This process, however, may cause a future disequilibrium on the food production and on the refining oil derivates structure. In order to analyze the substitution process resultant of the competition between two opponents fighting for the same market, in this case the gasoline/ethanol substitution process, a method derived from the biomathematics based on the non-linear differential equations (NLDE) system is utilized. A brief description of the method is presented. Numerical adherence of the method to explain several substitution phenomena that occurred in the past is presented in the previous author`s paper, in which the urban gas pipeline system substitution of bottled LPG in the dwelling sector and the substitution of the urban diesel transportation fleet by compressed natural gas (CNG) buses is presented. The proposed method is particularly suitable for prospective analysis and scenarios assessment. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

C-Port Flex-A-assisted automated anastomosis for high-flow extracranial-intracranial bypass surgery in patients with symptomatic carotid artery occlusion: a feasibility study. Clinical article

OBJECT: Preliminary experience with the C-Port Flex-A Anastomosis System (Cardica, Inc.) to enable rapid automated anastomosis has been reported in coronary artery bypass surgery. The goal of the current study was to define the feasibility and safety of this method for high-flow extracranial-intracranial (EC-IC) bypass surgery in a clinical series. METHODS: In a prospective study design, patients with symptomatic carotid artery (CA) occlusion were selected for C-Port-assisted high-flow EC-IC bypass surgery if they met the following criteria: 1) transient or moderate permanent symptoms of focal ischemia; 2) CA occlusion; 3) hemodynamic instability; and 4) had provided informed consent. Bypasses were done using a radial artery graft that was proximally anastomosed to the superficial temporal artery trunk, the cervical external, or common CA. All distal cerebral anastomoses were performed on M2 branches using the C-Port Flex-A system. RESULTS: Within 6 months, 10 patients were enrolled in the study. The distal automated anastomosis could be accomplished in all patients; the median temporary occlusion time was 16.6+/-3.4 minutes. Intraoperative digital subtraction angiography (DSA) confirmed good bypass function in 9 patients, and in 1 the anastomosis was classified as fair. There was 1 major perioperative complication that consisted of the creation of a pseudoaneurysm due to a hardware problem. In all but 1 case the bypass was shown to be patent on DSA after 7 days; furthermore, in 1 patient a late occlusion developed due to vasospasm after a sylvian hemorrhage. One-week follow-up DSA revealed transient asymptomatic extracranial spasm of the donor artery and the radial artery graft in 1 case. Two patients developed a limited zone of infarction on CT scanning during the follow-up course. CONCLUSIONS: In patients with symptomatic CA occlusion, C-Port Flex-A-assisted high-flow EC-IC bypass surgery is a technically feasible procedure. The system needs further modification to achieve a faster and safer anastomosis to enable a conclusive comparison with standard and laser-assisted methods for high-flow bypass surgery.