Current Funded Projects
Computational Models
for Evaluating Long Term CO2 Storage in Saline Aquifers (funded
by NSF and KAUST through the Academic Excellence Alliance
Program)
Geologic sequestration is a proven means of permanent CO2
greenhouse gas storage, but it is difficult to design and
manage such efforts. Predictive computational simulation may
be the only means to account for the lack of complete characterization
of the subsurface environment, the multiple scales of the
various interacting processes, the large areal extent of saline
aquifers, and the need for long time predictions. This proposal
will investigate high fidelity multiscale and multiphysics
algorithms necessary for simulation of multiphase flow and
transport coupled with geochemical reactions and related mineralogy,
and geomechanical deformation in porous media to predict changes
in rock properties during sequestration. The work will result
in a prototypical computational framework with advanced numerical
algorithms and underlying technology for research in CO2 applications,
which has been validated and verified against field-scale
experimental tests. The multidisciplinary research team has
expertise in (1) applied mathematics and computational science,
(2) computer science and engineering, (3) compositional modeling
and CO2 injection processes, and (4) CO2 demonstration sites.
In each of the third and fourth years of the project, we will
host a two-day workshop for high school teachers, advanced
high school students, and undergraduate students with an interest
in high school teaching. We will provide training in the use
of a sophisticated groundwater simulator, to be used as a
tool to engage and pique the interest of high schoolers, perhaps
leading some to careers in mathematics, the sciences, and
interdisciplinary work. In addition, two postdoctoral students
and roughly two graduate students will be supported throughout
the project.
Center for Frontiers of Subsurface Energy Security (funded
by DOE)
Currently mankind extracts most of the fuel for the global
economy from underground. The byproducts of consuming this
fuel enter the atmosphere or remain on the surface. This situation
is no longer tenable. A critical step toward future energy
systems will be the ability to cycle fuel byproducts back
to their original home: the Earth's subsurface. Applications
of this concept include storing CO2 in deep geologic formations
and securing radioactive materials in appropriately engineered
repositories. Our goal is to fill gaps in the knowledge base
so that subsurface storage schemes are reliable from the moment
they open. Two scientific Grand Challenges, which will be
investigated in this project, contribute to the gap between
forecast and outcome in geologic systems. First, byproduct
storage schemes will operate in a far-from-equilibrium state.
Second, it is difficult to explain the emergence of patterns
and other manifestations of correlated phenomena across length
and time scales.
Fully Locally Conservative Characteristic Methods for Transport
Problems (funded by NSF)
The ability to predict
the movement of a chemical specie, called a tracer, within
another, ambient fluid is important in many applications.
For example, the need arises in ground-water contaminant migration
studies. This project investigates ways to improve the prediction
of tracer transport through computer simulation. State-of-the-art
numerical algorithms of Lagrangian type simulate tracer transport
by explicitly calculating the movement of individual particles
within small regions of space. Tracer mass is conserved, meaning
that no mass is artificially created or destroyed by the numerical
calculations. This is a critical property for studies involving,
e.g., contaminants, since even small concentrations can be
toxic to humans, and any creation or degradation of the tracer
must be due to physical and chemical processes and not to
numerical artifacts. However, Lagrangian methods do not conserve
the mass of the ambient fluid. This results in inaccurate
tracer densities. That is, although tracer mass is conserved,
its concentration is incorrectly computed, which can lead
to serious inaccuracies in reaction dynamics and degradation
in the predicted movement over time. The approach taken by
the PI to resolve these difficulties is to consider the transport
of both the tracer and ambient fluids, each of which must
be conserved. The research is expected to result in significant
improvement in the approximation of transport problems for
long time simulation, and the training of at least one Ph.D.
student in a multidisciplinary environment. This work has
potential societal benefits as applied to problems in the
contamination of ground-water, petroleum and natural gas production,
and CO2 sequestration.
The ADCIRC Modeling
Group... More >>
Hurricane Storm Surge
Simulation on Petascale Computers (funded by NSF)... More
>>
Modeling Overland Flow
(funded by NSF)... More
>> |
