Home
Research
My research interests are related to modelling fluid flow and transport through subsurface porous media. Some areas of application include groundwater contamination, hydrocarbon production, carbon utilization and/or storage. These applications are impactful for both our society and the environment; our ground water sources need to be protected, our energy infrastructure depends on the use of fossil fuels and their extraction from the subsurface, and the future of our climate is linked to our greenhouse gas emissions.
Modelling geological carbon storage
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is considered to be a greenhouse gas, which means that excess accumulation in the atmosphere leads to the "greenhouse effect" or in other words warming of the earth's surface. As a mitigation strategy against climate change, CO2 is injected deep into the subsurface, say in a saline aquifer or depleted oil reservoir, for the purpose of long-term storage. To better understand how we can ensure safe and effective storage, I use mathematical models and simulations to answer questions such as the following:
How much CO2 can be injected into a formation?
Where will the CO2 migrate, and how will it become trapped?
What impact will pressure rise have on the formation?
Models and simulations can help answer questions like these, as well as help identify potential engineering challenges that will need to be addressed (e.g., excess pressure buildup, groundwater contamination, CO2 leakage, etc.).
Digital Rock Physics
I am also interested in modelling flow at the pore-scale to quantify effective properties of media such as permeability, tortuosity, and effective diffusivity. This involves solving for Stokes flow (using a numerical scheme such as finite difference or lattice Boltzmann methods), or solving a boundary value problem derived from the advection-diffusion equation. Permeability and effective diffusivity are important parameters used in reservoir-scale simulations. Recent advances in rock imaging as well as computational methods allow us to simulate flow at the pore-scale with much more accuracy and efficiency than before.
Personal Details
EMAIL allen.rebecca.d [at] gmail [dot] com
