Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum Volume 2013 Issue 1

This paper discusses a reduced switch count topology of multi-level three-phase voltage source inverter for variable speed drive applications. In the investigated topology, the number of power switching devices and the number of capacitor/neutral voltage clamping devices are drastically reduced when compared with the existing Neutral Point Clamped (NPC), Flying capacitor (FLC) and Cascaded H-bridge (CHB) multilevel s Read More

This paper aims to provide an in-depth overview of all the findings presented in recent research papers available on wind turbine emulation design methodologies. It discusses about the existing possibilities for developing the emulator and ultimately uses the suitable method for building a wind turbine emulator keeping all those issues discussed in previous research papers in mind. A wind emulator system is developed to investi Read More

Isolation and characterization of fungal pathogens causing date palm black scorch and false smut in Qatar Fatima A. Al-Naemi1, Resna K. Nishad1, Talaat A. Ahmed1 and Osman Radwan2 1Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar 2Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA The abi Read More

Crude oil and gas products transported using pipelines systems is safe and economical all over the the world. Nonetheless, such pipelines can still be subject to various degrees of failure and degradation generating hazardous consequences and severe environmental damages. As a result, it is important for these pipelines to be effectively monitored and assessed for optimal operation. Many models have been developed to pre Read More

The matrix converters are silicon based converters without bulky and expensive DC link capacitors other than its counterpart voltage source inverter (VSI) converters as an ideal voltage source and feed to ideal current source. Power electronic converters are a typical source of harmonic currents and during each switching cycle, the matrix converters produce unwanted harmonics and this will inject back to the AC mains. Read More

The GCC region has become a hub of major economic growth in the world. It is providing financial support and incentives to the GCC countries. Hereby, it has witnessed population growth and large scale industrial activities in the GCC countries. This has led to increased demand for electricity. Current demand for GCC power consumption is about 60 GW and it is projected that it will reach 180 GW within next 25 years Read More

Petroleum Geochemistry is an established science to study the formation, migration, accumulation and alteration of petroleum. It is routinely applied to understand the exploration and recovery of oil and gas, both for "conventional" hydrocarbons as well as "unconventional" resources like shale gas. Due to its diverse origins and subsequent alteration processes during migration and accumulation processes, many hydrocar Read More

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) is one of the most distributed and well-adapted fruit crops in the Middle East, and plays an important role in the history and diet of the Arab world. Dates constitute the primary exportable agricultural product in Qatar and current efforts are being made to improve its production. Over the years, clonal propagation has been used to maintain selected varieties with desirable morphological tra Read More

The desert climate of Qatar presents numerous challenges to the sustainable and secure provision of food for its increasing number of residents. This research looks at how the producing of food can be implemented in a resource efficient and sustainable way, using systems thinking to maximize the quality and quantity of food produced and to minimize the energy and resources consumed. Approached from a spatial a Read More

Geothermal energy has been a well known renewable sources for power production. Continuous non- stop of energy production along the year is the main aspect for a preferable way to generate power. As it is well known that geofluid is harvested from a production well which is used as the main input for the plant process. Consuming this geofluid for heat transfer process or by directly generating electricity in a steam turbin Read More

Context and objectives The dominant majority of the oil and gas reservoirs in the Middle East and in Qatar in particular are composed of carbonate porous media. Therefore, a better description of the heterogeneous carbonate porous media is a key challenge that will ultimately lead to efficiently unlock and develop new reserves. One of the main characteristics of carbonate rocks is their high reactivity in contact with hy Read More

Owning to the awareness of the correlation between fossil fuel consumption and the ongoing climate changes, there is general acceptance that deploying more renewable energy resources is an urgent issue. Recently, geothermal power plant has been introduced as a smart solution to reduce fossil fuel consumption. Unlike other renewable energy resources, the available energy of geothermal energy is constant all year Read More

The ability of date palm (Phoenix dactylifers L.) to grow in hot and dry regions of the world makes it an important subsistence crop in most arid areas. Nevertheless, salinity and drought are the main abiotic stresses causing loss of date palm yield. Here we employed the next generation sequencing technology for high-throughput sequencing of date palm transcripts in response to salinity. cDNA libraries, from roots treate Read More

Rising global energy demand and advancements in subsea engineering technology has made subsea oil and gas systems the dominant source for energy. The critical challenges in subsea systems included the associated external pressures and cold temperatures in ultra-deep water. Both of these challenges directly influence the safety and production of subsea oil and gas. Specifically, the design of a subsea pipeline must not Read More

The southeastern, leeward coast of Qatar presents a unique example of arid shoreline sedimentation patterns dominated by sand dune fields blown into the sea. The observed sediment dynamics, geospatial data, and facies patterns are analogous to aeolian reservoir systems in ancient rocks, like the Permo-Carboniferous Unayzah Formation of the Middle East or the Permian Rotliegend Formation of Northwest Europe. Oldest s Read More

Surveying biodiversity is a very expensive and time consuming work particularly in the marine environment. This is why we have to find practical and efficient solutions to identify the species and their habitats in order to proceed with management and conservation plans. Very little information is available for marine snakes' biodiversity in the Gulf region, but particularly for Qatar where no biodiversity studies have been conduct Read More

Wettability of a carbonate reservoir is one of the key points concerning oil recovery. Most carbonate reservoirs tend to be oil-wet. An oil-wet wettability generates significant problems in oil recovery since the formation has a stronger ability to keep oil attached in its pores, and it also decreases the efficiency of water flooding leading to faster water breakthrough. Wettability alteration in oil wet carbonate reservoirs ha Read More

Petroleum wells that cease to produce oil/gas economically and dry holes are referred to as abandoned wells. An abandoned well is usually plugged with cement and can take anywhere from two days up to a few weeks to cure depending on the number of plugs in the well. Since plugging a well costs capital, most wells are abandoned at the lowest possible cost and with the minimum obligations set by regulation agencies. These Read More

Date palm roots, like roots of other plants, host many microorganisms including bacteria and fungi. These microbial communities can have both favorable and unfavorable effects on the date palm's health and production. For this reason, the effect of the nitrogen source in the fertilizer on microbial communities and metabolomics is being studied. In this project we will use state-of-the-art metagenomic approaches to analyz Read More

Bioaugmentation and biostimulation studies were carried out on crude oil contaminated GCC soils using a series of engineered biopile systems. The preliminary soil studies clearly showed the poor level of nutrients and low count of indigenous soil bacteria, thus justifying the addition of bacteria and soil nutrients The success towards design of bioremediation systems to treat crude oil contaminated soils crucially depends on the o Read More

Answering the global need to identify crops that have the potential to produce quality food while maintaining sustainable development, quinoa is a cereal that provides significant promises. Thanks to its nutritional characteristics and agronomic versatility, quinoa offers an interesting alternative to traditional crops. Its harvesting contributes to regional and global food security especially in the areas where the population has no ac Read More

The idea of pushing the limits of drilling oil and gas wells by improving drilling fluids using conventional macro and micro type fluid additives is very crucial tasks especially to fulfill certain functional tasks. This is due to inadequate information on the physical, chemical, thermal and environmental characteristics of the additives. The industries are currently looking for cost efficient drilling operations, thus many researches are focusi Read More

Qatar biodiversity is under the pressure by the effects of environmental pollution, overgrazing, desertification as well as the climatic change. In order to rescue wild plant genetic resources of Qatar and in the line of Qatar Strategic action plan of Genetic resources, the present investigation aims at ex-situ conservation of some wild plant genetic resources from Rawdat Umm Al-Kharq. A total number of 17 accessions have co Read More

Gas hydrates are crystalline solids consisting of three dimensional, hydrogen bonded water molecules (host), encapsulated with a guest molecule. [1] There are numerous possibilities for the molecules acting as the guests. The most common guests include methane, ethane, propane and carbon dioxide. They can be significantly problematic in the production of oil and gas. The 1930's marked the discovery, by Hammersch Read More