Industrial Problems
As well as engaging in academic research I have helped a number of
industrial firms, usually building a simple mathematical model of some
process.
Here is a selection of companies and problems I have worked on:
S.T.C.: I showed how the attachment of leads to thermistors
controls their temperature and hence their operation
Cathedeon: the bulk grinding of quartz crystals in a drum;
Thorn: how to calculate the arc discharge in short high pressure sodium
lights
Pilkingtons: how the shape of the eyeball and surface tension act to
retain and centre contact lenses
E.P.G.: an explanation of how electro-painting works in the
crevices of door panels
Bateman: the optimal design of pendula for clocks (experiments
with Big Ben!)
British Steel: a consistent variational principle for nonlinear
gas flow through ore in a furnace
Plessey: wave scattering from a finite flexible plate
Perkins Engines: incomplete elasto-lubrication
C.E.R.C.: ventilation by wind blowing through the decks of an oil rig;
for Optical Research, collapse of a cylindrical cavity
Domino, the operation of a novel ink-jet printer, blocking of jets
by drying ink, and optimal pressure pulses for a drop-on-demand
printer
Courtaulds: how to inhibit the dancing instability of spun fibres,
heat transfer in air gap spinning, the origin of an instability whilst
washing a tow, de-crimping of cellulose acetate fibre bundles,
and the crumpling of ribbons
Shell, risk analysis of slow leaks from gas pipelines and fast leaks
of cold L.N.G., the use of a gel in oil pipeline bundles (the ketchup
bottle problem made 3km large!)
Lafarge Coppee:
the application of shock absorbing materials, a test for the
adhesion of plaster and the crushing of rocks into a fine powder;
DuPont: pin-holing in coatings of pastes
P.N.N.L.: the release of hydrogen from radioactive sludge; -
Saint Gobain Recherche: spinning of glass fibres and effects of
inhomogeneities in fibre-glass mats on radiative heat transfer
-
Schlumberger: various problems
For nearly 20 years I have collaborated with various branches of
Schlumberger on oil reservoir problems.
They have supported research assistants to study why oil does not
become disconnected at the constrictions between pores of a
water-wetted sandstone,
and how Taylor dispersion in an experimental `echo' mode might be used
to measure the roughness of fissures in fractured rocks.
To improve the flow from an oil well which is clogged with drilling
mud, strong acid is pumped into the porous strata, and
this flow of acid exhibits a viscous-fingering type of
instability.
As a consultant, I showed how to predict the thickness of mud cakes on
the surface of porous strata during drilling, and how
to predict
the useful migration of proppant particles away from the walls of a
fissure during hydraulic fracturing with elastic liquids.
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