11th November 2017, it was the first day of last semester of our 3rd year in college. Typically, about everyone came to the University early and the class was hanging out merrily at our spot. But, two of us, were feeling bit lost. Depressed regarding the fact that, other than attending routine classes just for good grades, we were not actually preparing for the future. From the beginning of Junior year, most of us started seriously pondering about the plans after Bachelors. Coincidently, both of us had grown quiet the liking toward the deepwater petroleum technologies. Specially, the petroleum exploration and extraction processes, that correlated with mining as well. Gradually, we also became aware about the bleak reality that, there is insufficient research facilities and about no job opportunity, for off-shore engineering in our country. We decided (more like pledged!) that, we are going to earnestly indulge ourselves into continuous self-learning and specialize on petroleum engineering in the Masters abroad. Therefore, we needed a project to apply our newly gleaned knowledges for better understanding. On that faithful day, we mustered up the courage to request our common most favorite teacher, to conduct an independent research under his supervision.
Right that day, we visited our professor Dr. Dewan Hasan Ahmed, and expressed our worries & passion regarding our future. Surprisingly, this humble gentleman, one of the most senior faculty took his valuable moments, actually to listen to our whining & blabbering! After that, he listed us full guidelines on conducting an engineering research step by step. He himself noted down the things for us on his pad, sent links to our email right-way and introduced us with Nitish Ranjan Sarker (a former faculty of our university), who recently finished his Masters in Petroleum Engineering abroad. Felt like we were being metaphorically spoon-fed for the first time in our adult life. We left his office super excited!
We began looking into possibilities of various research topics related to Petroleum Engineering. After studying about hundred papers and consulting with Nitish Sarker, we proposed our supervisor with the plan of researching on pipeline material wear due to slurry transportation. However, to execute that, we must construct a tester for conducting such research. Since, no institution facilitates such tester. Our supervisor advised that, a Toroidal Material Wear Tester with transparent side window would be most versatile for wide range experiments and closely resemble the mechanics of material wear during pipe-flow. Additionally, it would help us to study the fluid dynamics of multiphase flow as well. Dr. Ahmed assured his constant support and said that, it is going to be challenging but most fruitful if we can actually make it. We vowed to give our utmost effort.
We started with the papers by Nitish Sarker. It introduced us to the research world of toroid testers. Cooke et al (1996, 1999, 2000) traced back to the earliest works for coal degradation by Worster & Denny (1955). Traynis (1977) added to the earliest design. Their revolutionary ideas created the base for modern PCCE’s Toroid Tester. Henday’s (1977, 1998) bold depictions with BHRA design and wide range of analysis gave us the courage to stick with the vertical wheel setup. Meanwhile, McKibben & Shook’s (1988) critical insights prepared us for the expected difficulties. Incorporating all the knowledge contributed by the past researchers, their wisdom and continuous solicitous guidance by our mentors, we delved into designing the final model for our Toroid Wear Tester Machine.
Journey of Making a Toroidal Material Wear Tester 