Hi Innovation pipeline: technology transfer in the oil industry.

Hi Innovation pipeline: technology transfer in the oil industry.

The oil and gas sector is using technology 

transfer to solve its most pressing problems:

Whether you call it oil money, or the more recent term petro-dollars, the hydrocarbon sector has long been a by-word for wealth. Countries with oil revenues are rich, and oil and gas companies have resources aplenty. It’s easy to assume that, with all that black gold (and whatever the equivalent term is for natural gas) flowing in, they can find the funds to do pretty much whatever they like.

In the dream of oil executives, perhaps; but not in the real world. In fact, finances in the oil and gas sector are squeezed as hard as they are everywhere else. ‘Oil wells can cost as much as half a billion pounds each to drill, and only a quarter of them are successful,’ explained Prof Ann Muggeridge, holder of the Total Chair in Petroleum Engineering at Imperial College London: in this sense, she added, ‘successful’ just means that the well contains oil or gas and says nothing about how much there might be or even whether it would be profitable to extract it. ‘So companies have to be very choosy about what they spend their finite resources on.’

In recent years, this has hit research and development particularly hard. Whereas 25 to 30 years ago, the major companies all operated large central laboratories and research departments that handled all their technological requirements, these have gradually been eroded in the cause of cost control. The result of this is that oil and gas companies are now major players in the area of technology transfer, casting around for research streams and technologies that might prove useful to them and bringing them into their portfolios.

- "The important thing for us is to have technologies that make us distinctive,.." Bob Sorrell, BP.

Each company has its own way of doing this, but BP’s vice-president of public partnerships, Bob Sorrell, explained that, in general, companies will have a suite of technologies that they consider to be core to their competitiveness and will tend to use their own research facilities to develop these specialities, and will depend on technology transfer for subjects outside these areas. ‘The important thing for us is to have technologies that make us distinctive; we talk about “technology at the point of competition”,’ he said. 

BP’s computing centre in Houston now has a capacity of a little more than one petaflop, making it one of the world’s fastest civil supercomputers.

In BP’s case these specialities include seismic studies and particularly imaging derived from seismic data. ‘We have an entire building in Houston that houses a supercomputer and a whole team dedicated to interpreting the data it produces,’ Sorrell said; this is focused on actually finding oil in geological formations. Downstream, the company is concerned with operating its assets in refining and petrochemicals, and assessing their structural integrity; the company invests significant resources into corrosion monitoring, for example. Also firmly in-house is the development of fuel and lubricant formulations, which produce the range of commercial products that carry the BP name or that of its lubricants brand, Castrol.

But even within the sphere of seismic imaging, the company might find it needs some help, Muggeridge said. As a subsurface specialist, Muggeridge’s area of expertise is how the oil behaves within the porous rocks of the reservoir itself; once it gets into the wellbore, as she said, ‘it’s someone else’s problem’. But the reservoir doesn’t just act like a wet sponge absorbing and releasing oil easily; it interacts with the hydrocarbons and other substances injected into the reservoir in complex ways. ‘The tools we use to predict the performance of the reservoir are quite complicated numerical programmes, and for things such as modelling the flow in the reservoir we would like to be able to use parallel computing. The equations that describe fluid flow are non-linear and closely coupled, and parallel computing is the best way to solve those, but the commercial software that people use is not very easily parallelisable; so one of the things we’re bringing in ideas from outside on is how to better parallelise computational flow dynamics codes.’

One example of this is in modelling the interfaces between different rock strata inside the reservoir. ‘In the oil industry we tend to think of things in finite volumes; everything’s broken down into discrete boxes; but in aerospace, for example, they’re quite happy to model surfaces using triangles and other polygons to get as close to the real shape as possible,’ Muggeridge said. ‘That hasn’t really come into the oil industry yet; but the shapes in the reservoir are curvy and awkward, so that’s definitely a place where technology transfer would be a way to progress.’

The oil and gas industry has also called for help in extracting oil, Muggeridge said. One example would be the BP project Brightwater in the 1990s, where the company wanted to improve recovery in reservoirs where the rocks had different permeability. ‘They’d inject water, but it would follow the path of least resistance into the more permeable rock and leave the oil in the lower permeability regions.’ BP approached several chemical companies, and eventually formed an alliance with Chevron and Nalco, with the latter company developing an additive that would ensure the water bypassed permeable rocks. ‘What was needed was some kind of additive that could be injected with the water, and would migrate a small distance from the well bore and then set, so that it didn’t damage the ability to inject. They decided it would be best be triggered by temperature, as seawater — which is what they were injecting — is cold and it warms up in the well. So what Nalco devised was a polymer that coils up on itself when it’s cold, but when it reaches a trigger temperature it bursts open like popcorn and blocks off those more permeable routes, so the water is forced into the less-porous strata and displaces the oil.’

The catalytic reformer No.3 at the Kwinana refinery in Western Australia.

Chemical firms are important technology-transfer partners for the oil industry, partly because they speak the same technological language. But also, as oil reserves become more difficult to extract from wells that have been exploited for some years, it becomes economic for industry to inject ‘something more complex than water’ to get it out, as Muggeridge puts it.

‘The existing additives tend to work at a specific conditions of temperature, salinity or mineralogy, so, increasingly, oil companies are going to their chemicals partners and are asking for additives that work at higher temperatures, higher salinities and in carbonate-containing rocks that are reactive, and if they can have something more environmentally friendly than polyacrylamide gels.’ If this can increase the extraction rate from 40 per cent of the reservoir contents to 45 per cent, it’s well worth the investment.

Sometimes, the research that proves key to an oil company’s technology isn’t so obvious. Bob Sorrell explained that after 27 years in the industry, he finds that talking to people who aren’t connected with it can unlock new approaches to problems in unexpected directions. ‘One example is barnacles on ships, which is a big problem; they stick to the hull and it then takes more fuel to propel the ship. We used to paint the hull with tributyl tin, which stopped them attaching, but that’s now banned,’ he explained.

Studies on barnacles has helped drive the development of new coatings.

‘So a group of scientists in Sweden looked at the larvae of acorn barnacles to find out why they attach in the first place; it turned out to be that the larvae could sense a change in their chemical environment, and you could use a polymer that wasn’t toxic but blocked that chemical change to stop them attaching. We were interested in that, because we operate a fleet of tankers, but there was more to it than that, because the next piece of work these scientists did was to look at deposition of proteins on prostheses, and then to look at build-up of materials on surfaces. And this brought us on to our own issues, such as the build-up of deposits that can cause blockages in production systems. We could apply the same thinking on how the deposits start to build in the barnacles as to blockages in upstream and even in automotive with build-up of deposits on fuel injectors and other parts of engines, and understanding in fundamental science can really help you there.’

Biological insights such as this could be increasingly important to the sector, and in even more direct ways. Companies are beginning to investigate a technique called microbial-enhanced oil recovery (MEOR), which, as the name implies, uses microorganisms rather than chemicals, or pressure from water or CO₂ in the reservoir to encourage flow into the well bore. MEOR works by using the microorganisms to change the interaction between oil and rock, but although it was first discovered in the 1920s, it has not fulfilled expectations, according to Muggeridge. ‘We just haven’t understood enough about how bugs behave and grow under conditions of high temperature and in a chemical-rich environment, but in the past few decades there has been such huge growth in knowledge of biotechnology and the genetics of these organisms that we might 

be able to finally exploit this technology.’

According to Sorrell, there are three reasons an oil company might choose to turn to technology transfer to solve a problem. ‘The first is that just by looking at the problem that you’re facing, you may just by talking to someone from a different sector get a fresh perspective on how to solve it. Second, someone may have solved the problem already. And third, it make sense to work in emerging areas, such as graphene, it makes much more sense for a group of companies to work together to understand what the applications are for this new area of science.’ BP is trying to broaden its reach into academic research by issuing open calls for research grants, he added.

But Muggeridge said that such decisions tend to be made on the basis of the specific problems that a company is facing at a particular time, such as getting oil or gas out of a specific well or group of wells in similar geology if they aren’t performing up to expectations. ’In my experience, the industry tends to be focused on its immediate performance and it isn’t very good at looking forward to long-term technology needs, although there are of course exceptions such as carbon capture and storage.’

One of the ways BP accesses technologies to transfer into its portfolio is via the International Centre for Advanced Materials (ICAM) of which Sorrell is associate director. Based at a ‘hub’ at Manchester University and with ‘spokes’ at Cambridge, Imperial and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, it is ‘an essential part of BP’s innovation ecosystem’, Sorrell explained. ‘We call it an ecosystem because we believe we can achieve much more in partnership with others than we could on our own; we can leverage expertise more effectively through academic partnerships and joint ventures. We also have a corporate venturing model where we take equity stakes in small companies and get a position on the board, so we can observe technology development in those companies and understand how that’s developing in the market they work in, and that’s a very powerful way of understanding how they operate.’

In my experience, the industry tends to be focused on its immediate performance and it isn’t very good at looking forward to long-term technology needs, Prof Ann Muggeridge, Imperial College.

The desire of oil companies to engage across the sciences indicates one of the reasons that the oil industry has such a strong influence in academia. Its ability to fund research is one reason, although it tends to look at relatively small- to medium-term projects. But another reason is the sheer breadth of the science base it touches. It offers scientists an enormous range of challenging topics to study. An this may be why, despite the growing controversy over fossil-fuel investment, Bob Sorrell sees no unease within the scientific community about seeking funding or involvement in the oil industry. ‘It continues to be a mutually beneficial relationship,’ he said, ‘and for us, an increasingly vital one.’

Hi New Metal Working World!

Hi New Metal Working World!

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Hi Is Hyper spectral Imaging Ready to Take Off?

Hi Is Hyper spectral Imaging Ready to Take Off?

After the Deep water Horizon oil rig exploded and spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, the U.S. space agency, NASA, deployed its Earth Resources-2 aircraft to detect the presence, extent and concentration of the spill. Equipped with the airborne visible/infra-red imaging spectrometer (AVIRIS), the aircraft collected data that helped researchers identify thicker parts of the spill by measuring how the water absorbed and reflected light.

AVIRIS calibrates images of the spectral radiance in 224 adjacent spectral bands. By comparison, a traditional RGB (red, green, blue) sensor used in colour cameras captures three bands. The NASA-deployed technology, known as hyper spectral imaging or imaging spectroscopy, allowed AVIRIS to document what satellites could not by distinguishing material properties otherwise undetectable by the human eye.

Although hyper spectral imaging is used primarily in remote sensing applications such as the Deepwater Horizon accident, new applications that include food safety inspection and life sciences are bringing the technology from the skies overhead to the plant floor.

Color infrared composite image made from three spectral bands of NASA's MASTER instrument mounted on the high-altitude ER-2. Red areas depict green vegetation in Las Vegas, Nev., on May 30. 2014. Source: NASA/Dean Neeley/Jeff Myers.

Hyper spectral imaging adds a third spectral dimension to standard 2D pictures in which each pixel contains dozens and even hundreds of values, each representing a section of the electromagnetic spectrum. A standard 2D image taken with a digital camera captures three values per pixel and splits the visible spectrum into red, green and blue values. In other words, a hyper spectral image is visualized as a “data cube” representing spectral and spatial information, typically covering the electromagnetic spectrum between 300 nano meters (nm) and 2,600 nm. Hyper-spectral images record 100 bands or more in the spectrum, whereas multi-spectral imagery typically capture about 20 channels.

Within the hyper spectral sensor, a specialized optic called a “diffraction grating” spatially separates the electromagnetic spectrum by wavelength. This data cube, essentially a stack of images with each one viewed through a narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum, holds more data on the material properties of an object in the imagery field of view than with standard imaging techniques.

“Each object under view has a unique spectral signature, so based on how the sensor views the scene, we can make a real-time determination as to the material composition of the object,” says David Bannon, CEO of Headwall Phonetics, a spectral imaging manufacturer based in Fitchburg, Mass.

Hyper spectral machine vision has two critical components, says Adam Stern, senior scientist at Resonon Inc. in Bozeman, Mont. One component is the hyper-spectral imaging itself and the other is real-time statistical pattern-recognition software that uses the hyper-spectral data to control robotic actuators.

Benefit or Weakness?

Until recently, hyper-spectral imaging’s benefits have also been its weakness. While it provides a lot more data on a scene, the data flow can be too much for computers to handle in real time. As a result, it requires specialized knowledge to extract usable information from the massive amounts of visual data.

“Not only do you have a picture with a million pixels, but each pixel has 240 12-bit data points, so the datasets are enormous," Stern says. "Computers are finally getting big, fast and inexpensive enough to make this an economically feasible technology.”

These advances have enabled the adoption of hyper-spectral imaging in automated sorting applications where existing machine vision technologies or manual sorting fail. In the case of almond sorting in the food industry, for example,

A technician could train the hyperspectral system to recognize almonds based on spectral data. Source: Resonon.

Standard machine vision systems that are equipped with monochrome or three-color cameras often don't acquire this data, or they acquire it but without the spectral specificity to reliably make an automated decision.

Using software algorithms developed for multi- and hyper-spectral imaging systems, automated sorting systems can analyse data in real time and instruct a robot or other material handling system as to what to reject and what to accept.

Food inspection facilities have been early commercial adopters of hyper-spectral imaging, says Bannon, because of government safety regulations. In fact, Headwall sold its first hyper-spectral inspection instrument in the food safety industry to a major poultry processor five years ago following research and development conducted with the U.S. Agriculture Department.

“When you are in a regulated environment that is being controlled or overseen by a human, it’s a difficult job to be able to inspect food products at very high speeds,” he says. “The hyper-spectral sensors will run continuously and provide accurate and repeatable results.”

Not only is hyper-spectral imaging able to improve upon human visual inspection, but it also can replace traditional biological or chemical detection laboratory sampling experiments that require additional time and resources.

Expense and Training;

While advances in microprocessors, memory and high-speed data interfaces make hyper-spectral imaging more attractive to industrial users, the imagery themselves can be expensive and require trained technicians to keep the hardware calibrated.

Nano electronics research center imec (formerly the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre based in Leuven, Belgium) builds its hyperspectral sensors directly on top of, and as an extension to, the image sensor. 

Other hyper-spectral instruments combine high and optical components and align the optical path.

In the sensor, each row essentially acts as a linear camera filtered to a specific spectral band. By scanning the camera across a target area, each row acquires a single line of a 2D image for a given spectral band.

Using software and computers, each new row constructs a 2D image for that spectral band. By combining continuous images from these rows, a 3D image block is created with the number of spectral bands limited by the size of the area-array image sensor. 

Different filters can be positioned over individual pixels meaning that other arrangements that do not require line scanning also are possible.

A camera with a standard area-array sensor can be fitted with an image sensor that contains imec’s hyper-spectral filter. 

The resulting camera retains the same dimensions, but features spectral capabilities with the same form factor. 

This enables the mass fabrication of hyper-spectral cameras and opens new applications that previously could not use hyper-spectral cameras, says Andy Lambrechts, program manager and team leader of Integrated Imaging at imec.

Imec manufactures the hyper-spectral sensors at wafer level, with each wafer containing tens to hundreds of imagery that are manufactured together. The process can use semiconductor industry equipment, which enables the alignment of spectral filters on a per-pixel scale. This approach reduces the optical complexity and cost of the hyper-spectral imaging camera, Lambrechts says.

Multiple Manufacturers;

Imec is partnering with multiple camera manufacturers, including Adimec, Tattile, Bayspec, 3D-One and VRMagic to bring this technology to multiple markets. 

One example is the xiQ USB3.0 camera manufactured by XIMEA of Münster, Germany. The camera measures 26 mm³ and weighs 27 grams. 

As earth observation platforms move from expensive satellites to more cost-effective, widely deployable unmanned aerial vehicles, Lambrechts says the need for compact hyper-spectral cameras will grow.

XIMEA CEO Max Larin sees expanding applications in a variety of industries, including life science instrumentation and medical imaging.

“You now have a portable device for express skin diagnostics, for example, that you can bring to the patient rather than bring the patient to the system,” he says.

Hyper-spectral imaging has been used in remote sensing for about 30 years, but the technology is still in its early stages within industrial and medical settings. As with any new implementation, growing pains are expected.

“Speed and resolution will always be a challenge for this technology, but it’s getting better all the time,” Stern says.

Furthermore, there is a lot of information in the short-wave infra-red (SWIR) spectral range that cannot be obtained with standard sensors. 

The near-infrared (NIR)-SWIR range from 900 to 1700 nm can be measured with conventional InGaS cameras, but many materials have reflectance signatures that extend to 2500 nm, Stern says, 

“Sensors in this spectral range often cost $50,000 or more, and the technology is just not there yet to affordable capture that data.”

Ease of use also will drive adoption. Headwall Phonetics’ Hyperspec imaging systems integrate a sensor, an embedded processor (containing a library of spectral signatures for comparison against data acquired by the imagery) and a diagnostic module within an IP-rated enclosure. This configuration reduces the number of components a customer has to buy.

Headwall also has prioritized software development. 

“We need to come in with robust, flexible application software capabilities that allow our customers to immediately understand the spectral composition of the product in the terms and nomenclature that they are familiar with,” Bannon says. 

Headwall’s software interfaces with upstream and downstream instruments such as robotic vacuum arms on the processing line to help users act on the data that is received.

Fulfilling hyper-spectral imaging’s commercial promise so far has seemingly been just one more technological advance away. 

Thanks to advances in processing power, economical hyper-spectral imaging sensors and software that simplifies the physics, the technology's day in the sun may be near.

Hi EVENTS; Air & Climate 2014/15.

Hi EVENTS; Air & Climate 2014/15.

The Air Quality and Emissions Show (AQE) 2015. Telford - United Kingdom Apr. 22 - 23, 2015. The 8th in the series of Air Quality & Emissions Events will focus on industrial emissions and stack monitoring of (Part A) processes regulated by the Environment Agency, ambient air quality monitoring,the emissions to air of Part A2 and Part B processes controlled by local authorities, MCERTS standards,.....

Practical Air Dispersion Modeling Workshop - CA, USA Los Angeles - California (USA) Nov. 5 - 7, 2014. This three day workshop is intended for individuals with little or no prior knowledge of air dispersion modeling techniques for continuous releases. New regulations require dispersion models to be used to estimate the magnitude of pollutants from industrial sources on populations both near and far ... Climate Change: Building the Age of Resilience. London - United Kingdom Oct. 23, 2014. This conference will look at the case for developing resilient systems and infrastructure in light of a changing climate. It will examine the range of uncertainties in climate predictions, how different sectors are currently approaching ... Climate Change: Earth System, Future Scenarios and Threats 2014. Newcastle upon Tyne - United Kingdom Nov. 10 - 14, 2014. The course starts with the science of climate change, dealing with uncertainties and the major issues affecting our understanding of the climate system and its future behaviour. It then moves on to climate modelling, covering the ... Lima Climate Change Conference - December 2014. Lima - Peru Dec. 1 - 12, 2014. The 20th session of the Conference of the Parties and the 10th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol will be held from 1 to 12 December. COP 20/CMP 10 will be hosted by ... Air Pollution 2014. Newcastle - United Kingdom Dec. 8 - 12, 2014. This course will: * introduce the fundamentals of air pollution with a background on historical perspective on air pollution and a commentary on current air quality policies and standards; * discuss major pollutants, their ... Clean Air Compliance Manager March 2015. Las Vegas - Nevada (USA) Mar. 17 - 19, 2015. This is a 3-day course providing a comprehensive look at the Federal Clean Air Act (CAA), its history and drivers, each of the Titles of the 1990 CAA Amendments, and the permitting process. 2015 Northeast Indoor Air Quality and Energy Conference. Portland - Maine (USA) Apr. 15 - 16, 2015. The Northeast IAQ & Energy Conference (formerly called the Maine Indoor Air Quality Conference) is the largest IAQ conference ... 23rd International Conference on Modelling, Monitoring and Management of Air Pollution. Valencia - Spain Jun. 1 - 3, 2015. The conferences in this series have discussed and considered many important air pollution issues and the international nature of the attendees has ensured that the conference findings and conclusions enjoy a wide and rapid dissemination ... 6th World Hydrogen Technologies Convention (WHTC) 2015. Sydney - Australia Oct. 11 - 14, 2015. The World Hydrogen Technologies Convention (WHTC), a leading technical and commercial event for the global hydrogen energy and fuel cell community, will be held at Australian Technology Park, Sydney on October 11-14, 2015,

Hi Salting The Earth: New Molten Salt Reactor Looks For Commercial Success.

Hi Salting The Earth: New Molten Salt Reactor Looks For Commercial Success.

Nuclear power has always been a delicate subject, and recent contamination issues such as those in Fukushima have put “traditional” nuclear power under the microscope again.

Thankfully, there’s an alternative: salt. Not the shaker kind or the sea variety, but molten uranium or thorium suspended in liquid and used to generate anywhere from 29 to 290 megawatts of electricity.

This isn’t a new technology, but new iterations have real potential in an evolving power market. The question is: What can this seasoned nuclear option bring to the table?

From Water to Salt:

In the late 1940s, American Naval researchers started looking for ways to put nuclear power plants into air craft carriers and submarines. The answer? Pressurized water reactors that used high pressure – on the order of 160 atmospheres – to keep hot water in liquid form even at 330 degrees Celsius.

The benefit? Lots of hot steam for electricity and propulsion. Downsides? The reactor was heavy, hard to maintain, and if something went wrong, radioactive components came blasting out with 160 atmospheres of force. In submarine jargon, that equates to “we’re all going to die.”

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory meanwhile, went looking for a lighter, less strip-the-flesh-from-your-bones way of getting nuclear reactors into airplanes – and they came up with the molten salt reactor (MSR).

Here’s how it works: Molten salts of uranium or thorium are mixed with water and undergo a continuous nuclear reaction, but without high pressure. If breached, there’s no sudden explosion and no risk of meltdown since the fuel medium is already liquid.

In addition, MSRs produce far less waste material than water-powered plants when decommissioned, and over 80 percent of MSR waste is short-lived. Despite their benefits, salt-based options lost out to other technologies in the early 1970s.

The Great White North:

Just as fashion trends re-emerge after a few decades of dormancy, so it is with nuclear power generation.

Power company Terrestrial Energy has plans to build prototype, low-enriched uranium MSR reactors in Canada over the next few years. The company is tweaking standard design by eliminating graphite as a high-temperature moderator and instead using a sealed reactor space with room for two modules: one in use and one cooling off.

Each unit will last seven years and used reactors will provide recyclable materials. Canadian performance-based licensing means the company should be able to achieve government approval in just a few years and then transition to U.S. applications.

Stay Salty:

The bottom line: In combination with solar, wind and natural gas power sources, MSRs makes more sense than highly pressurized and radioactive water.

Sure, consistent power plant maintenance is crucial to avoid the spectre of nuclear contamination but using a more familiar medium like salt cuts down on public superstition – no need to toss this one over your shoulder.

Hi Reverse Engineer Your Conveyor.

Hi Reverse Engineer Your Conveyor.

Timing, Timing, Timing!

Efficient manufacturing boils down to cohesiveness, and a major component of this is timing. When dealing with container handling solutions, that translates into timing screws.

With the ability to make or break production, it's important that you properly manage every aspect of your timing screws. 

In this case, knowing their functionality and terminology are a great starting point.

What are they?

Timing screws are perhaps one of the most critical aspects of a packaging line. 

Without them, your line is pretty much useless. 

The major function they have is to smoothly transfer containers between packaging machines.

They run on rotary equipment and are placed next to a star wheel so that they can accept, separate, accelerate, or discharge containers according to the machine's requirements.

Timing screws can be designed in many different shapes and patterns to accommodate the container they will be handling, but to make sure you're getting one that will work best for you, careful engineering and craftsmanship must be used to get it right.

Terminology;

There are a couple different terms that are useful to know when dealing with timing screws. That way when yours is getting designed, you know what elements the designer is referring to.

Pockets and Lands;

A pocket is basically the part that the container is nestled into when it's moved along the timing screw. 

This must be carefully measured and designed so that it fits the container precisely and properly.

The land is the part of the screw that protrudes out and holds the container in place on either side. 

As the screw spins, the land moves forward, holding and pushing the container with it. 

The land can vary in size and width depending on the container being handled and the function of the timing screw.

Lead Edge and Following Edge;

The lead edge is the edge of the land that is in front of the container, separating it from the container in front of it. 

The following edge is the edge behind the container that pushes it and keeps it nestled in the pocket (the area between the lead edge and following edge).

Discharge Pitch;

The discharge pitch is basically the distance from lead edge to lead edge-or from the front of one pocket to the front of the next pocket.

Root Diameter and Outside Diameter;

The root diameter is the diameter of the inside of the screw-the cylinder that the land protrudes from.

The outside diameter includes the land. 

So, this would be the measurement of the root diameter plus how far out the land protrudes on all sides.

Other Functions;

Although the main function of timing screws is to move containers along smoothly from one section to another, new designs and creative engineering has enabled them to do far more than just that.

For instance, timing screws can also be designed to accelerate or decelerate the movement of a container, divide containers, combine them, or even halt them momentarily, but these tasks are only possible if the screw is specially tailored to the shape of the container. 

So, as was said before, proper measurement and design is crucial.