Faculty Profiles
Khalid Aziz, Otto N. Miller Professor Emeritus
Department of Energy Resources Engineering
The overall goal of my research is the development of robust and reliable models for predicting performance of hydrocarbon reservoirs and CO2 sequestration operations. Over the years I have been involved with the development of four different industrial consortia dealing with different aspects of this problem. The first was on reservoir simulation (SUPRI-B), the second on data integration (SCRF), the third on advanced wells (SUPRI-HW), and the most recent one on Smart Fields (SFC). Underlying my research is the desire to understand mechanisms involved in the flow of complex mixtures in porous rocks and pipes, and modeling of these processes on computers. While I am no longer directly involved with SCRF, I co-direct the other three consortia. All are highly successful and have led to a number of developments and innovations that have found important applications in industry.
Louis Durlofsky, Otto N. Miller Professor; Department Chair
Department of Energy Resources Engineering
The ability to accurately model flow in subsurface formations enables the efficient production and optimal management of key resources such as oil and natural gas. Reliable subsurface flow models will also be required for the design and operation of geologic CO2 storage processes. My students and I pursue a number of research areas involving the simulation of multiphase subsurface flow phenomena. Some of the specific areas we study are the accurate modeling and optimization of nonconventional (multilateral and "smart") wells, the upscaling (or coarsegraining) of detailed geological descriptions for flow simulation, modeling flow in fractured or faulted systems, CO2 sequestration modeling, and general numerical discretization and gridding issues. Many of our studies involve the development of new computational methods able to accurately and efficiently represent the effects of geological complexity on subsurface flow. Another main focus is "closed-loop" reservoir modeling, in which we employ computational optimization and data assimilation techniques for real-time simulation and optimization of oil and gas production.
Hamdi Tchelepi, Associate Professor
Department of Energy Resources Engineering
Hamdi is interested in numerical modeling of flow and transport in natural porous media. Application areas include reservoir simulation and CO2 sequestration. Specific interests include (1) analysis of unstable miscible and immiscible flows in heterogeneous formations, (2) scalable (efficient for large problems) linear and nonlinear solution algorithms of multiphase flow in highly heterogeneous systems, and (3) stochastic moment equation methods for quantifying the uncertainty associated with predictions of flow performance in the presence of limited reservoir characterization data.
Facebook
iTunes U
Twitter
YouTube