News

May 2025

Congratulations to Dr. Cheng Chen for being promoted to full professor!

April 2025

Congratulations to Misagh for successfully defensing his Ph.D. dissertation. Misagh will work in the consulting industry at the NYC after receiving his Ph.D. degree.

December 2024

Congratulations to Qingqi for having his new paper accepted at Advances in Water Resources! This paper is entitled: "A Computationally Efficient Hybrid Neural Network Architecture for Porous Media: Integrating Convolutional and Graph Neural Networks for Improved Property Predictions". In this work, we present a novel fusion model that integrates a simplified convolutional neural network (CNN) with a graph neural network (GNN) for predicting porous media's properties, such as permeability and formation factor. The fusion model efficiently consolidates clusters of pixels into graph nodes and edges that represent pores and throats, respectively. Our results demonstrate that the accuracy of the model in predicting porous medium properties is superior to that of the standalone CNN, while its total parameter count is nearly two orders of magnitude lower.

We are excited to participate in a DOE project that aims to develop artificial intelligence-powered fiber optic sensors for hydrogen production in gasification systems. Dr. Yi Bao from CEOE is the lead-PI of this 2-year, $500K award.

July 2024

We are excited to receive a 3-year, $430K award from NSF. In this new project we aim to study the impact of permeability heterogeneity on solute dispersion in unsaturated porous media.

June 2024

Congratulations to Yuntian Teng for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation! Dr. Teng will be moving to the University of Texas at Austin to start his post-doc research.

April 2024

We are excited to receive a $1.52 million award from DOE/Utah-FORGE to conduct geothermal research! The DOE announcement can be found at: https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/us-doe-announces-44-million-funding-for-egs-innovation-projects/
The story of our new geothermal project has been reported at the Stevens News: https://www.stevens.edu/news/cheng-chen-awarded-usd1-52-million-from-the-department-of-energy-to-harness

March 2024

Congratulations to Qingqi Zhao for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation! Dr. Zhao will start his post-doc job at the University of Stuttgart.

October 2023

Congratulations to Qingqi for having another journal paper published at Fuel ! This new paper is entitled "Underground hydrogen storage: A recovery prediction using pore network modeling and machine learning". In this work, we used pore network modeling and machine learning to identify reservoir rocks having low hydrogen (H2) trapping rates, which are favorable for hydrogen retrievability in underground hydrogen storage (UHS). The research findings from the paper will provide insights into site selections and support decision making in large-scale UHS.

July 2023

Congratulations to Qingqi for having his first journal paper accepted at International Journal of Hydrogen Energy! His paper is entitled "Numerical Simulation of the Impact of Different Cushion Gases on Underground Hydrogen Storage in Aquifers Based on an Experimentally-Benchmarked Equation-of-State". In this work, we develop a two-phase, three-component reservoir simulator to study hydrogen (H2)'s retrievability in an underground hydrogen storage (UHS) system. This is the first study that utilizes an equation of state-based reservoir simulator to investigate hydrogen's flow patterns and interactions with cushion gases in UHS. The developed reservoir simulation tool and research findings will be valuable to support decision making in practical UHS projects.

June 2023

Congratulations to Dr. Ruichang Guo for having another new paper accepted at Advances in Water Resources! This new paper is entitled "Using 3D-printed fluidics to study the role of permeability heterogeneity on miscible density-driven convection in porous media". In this work, we used state-of-the-art 3D printing technologies to construct well-controlled heterogeneous permeability fields having the desired mean, standard deviation, and spatial correlation length of permeability. The aim of the research is to study the role of permeability heterogeneity on miscible density-driven convection in porous media, which has critical implications to the long-term security of geological carbon sequestration. This project was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

February 2023

Working with our Sandia National Lab collaborators, we are starting lab experiments to study mechanochemical interactions of hydrogen (H2) with earth materials in a subsurface gas storage. Hydrogen core flooding experiments will be conducted in a six-feet fume hood in our lab.

January 2023

Congratulations to Dr. Hongsheng Wang for publishing a journal paper at Advances in Water Resources! The paper is entitled: "Application of unsupervised deep learning to image segmentation and in-situ contact angle measurements in a CO2-water-rock system". In this work, an unsupervised deep learning (DL) pipeline for CT image segmentation was proposed and implemented, which includes unsupervised model training and post-processing. The unsupervised model training was driven by a novel loss function constrained with feature similarity and spatial continuity and implemented by iterative forward and backward paths. An over-segmentation strategy was adopted for model training. The post-processing steps based on agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) were implemented to further merge the over-segmented model output to the desired cluster number.

December 2022

Dr. Chen was conferred a medallion for the Nariman Farvardin Endowed Chair Professorship during a celebratory dinner with the Board of Trustees and university leadership on December 1st.

October 2022

Congratulations to Yuntian for having a journal paper accepted at Journal of Hydrology! The paper is entitled: "Temperature effect on non-Darcian flow in low-permeability porous media". In this work, Yuntian conducted well-controlled laboratory experiments to study the influence of temperature on the threshold pressure gradient of non-Darcian flow in low-permeability porous media. Our research findings have practical applications to geological disposal of nuclear waste and shale oil and gas recovery. This work was funded by the U.S. DOE.

The story about our new DoD project was reported in the Stevens News !

August 2022

We are excited to officially receive a $1.4 million contract from DoD to study the geomechanical and transport properties of granular materials in hydraulic fractures and the applications to subsurface environmental remediation. The project is entitled: "Fundamentals of Particulate Amendment Transport and Compaction in Hydraulic Fractures and the Application to Effective Remediation in Low-Permeability Clay". We are thankful to the support and help from our co-PIs on this project, including Prof. Ming Gu.

Congratulations to Hongsheng Wang for receiving a postdoc researcher position at the University of Texas at Austin!

July 2022

Congratulations to Hongsheng Wang for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation on July 15th, 2022! His dissertation is entitled: "Application of machine learning and deep learning methods in geological carbon sequestration across multiple spatial scales".

July 2022

We are excited to receive a sub-award of $151,439 from Virginia Tech which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The project aims to evaluate the methods for producing and activating biochar as a soil amendment for improving soil health, carbon sequestration, and productivity in diverse managed ecosystems.

June 2022

Ph.D. student Yuntian is starting a summer internship position at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Congratulations to Yuntian !!

We attended the Engineering Mechanics Institute Conference 2022 (EMI 2022) at Baltimore, the first in-person meeting of the SEWES group in the past two years! Ph.D. students Yuntian and Qingqi gave an oral presentation entitled: "Experimental Investigation of Non-Monotonic Fracture Conductivity Evolution in Energy Georeservoirs". Dr. Chen gave an oral presentation entitled: "A Novel Multiphysics Multiscale Multiporosity Shale Gas Transport Model for Geomechanics/Flow Coupling in Steady and Transient States".

May 2022

Dr. Ruichang Guo has a new journal paper accepted by Advances in Water Resources. Congratulations! The paper is entitled: "Role of heterogeneous surface wettability on dynamic immiscible displacement, capillary pressure, and relative permeability in a CO2-water-rock system". Surface wettability is one of the major factors that regulate immiscible fluid displacement in porous media, which has important applications to geological CO2 sequestration and oil and gas recovery. However, the role of pore-scale wettability heterogeneity on dynamic immiscible displacement in porous media is rarely investigated. This paper used lattice Boltzmann multi-phase flow simulation to investigate the impact of pore-scale wettability heterogeneity on immiscible two-fluid displacement and the resulting macroscopic constitutive relations, such as the capillary pressure-water saturation (Pc-Sw) and relative permeability curves.

Dr. Ruichang Guo gave an online presentation at the InterPore 2022 conference. His talk is entitled: "Using In-situ Wettability Measurements to Reconstruct the Wetting Conditions of a Natural Rock".

April 2022

Ph.D. student Hongsheng has a deep learning paper accepted at Journal of Petroleum Science and Technology. Congratulations! The paper is entitled: "Deep-learning-based workflow for boundary and small target segmentation in digital rock images using UNet++ and IK-EBM".

Segmentation of boundary and small targets in 3D X-ray CT images is challenging due to the partial volume blurring effect, which is caused by the fact that the volume of a boundary or small object is close to the size of a single CT voxel. In this paper, we focus on the improvement of training data quality and development of a novel UNet++ deep learning model. For training data quality improvement, we use the entropy-based-masking indicator kriging (IK-EBM) method, which is based on the covariance matrices between data and data and between data and unknowns, to improve the labeling accuracy for the pixels near boundaries and small targets. Based on the high-quality training datasets generated by IK-EBM, the UNet++ is a state-of-the-art deep learning model that integrates multiscale features across different depths of the encoder-decoder network, which enables a smooth semantic transition and consequently faster convergence and more accurate extraction of fine-scale features near boundaries and small targets.

March 2022

Congratulations to Ruichang Guo for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation on March 28th, 2022! His dissertation is entitled: "Multi-scale Investigations of Geological Carbon Sequestration in Deep Saline Aquifers".

January 2022

Zihao has a new paper accepted by Journal of Petroleum Science and Technology. Congratulations!! The paper is entitled: "Experimental Investigation of Non-monotonic Fracture Conductivity Evolution in Energy Georeservoirs".

This work is the first study that uses well-controlled laboratory experiments to comprehensively investigate non-monotonic fracture conductivity evolution as a function of increasing proppant concentration under various effective stresses, proppant particle sizes, rock types, and water soaking time. The findings from this experimental study will advance the fundamental understanding of proppant embedment and compaction and will contribute to the development of workflows for optimizing proppant placement and maximizing productivity in hydraulic fracturing.

December 2021

Dr. Chen gave an invited presentation at ExxonMobil’s Corporate Strategic Research Center in New Jersey. The talk was entitled: "Integration of Experimental, Numerical, and Machine Learning Methods for Subsurface Energy and Environmental Systems".

November 2021

Congratulations to Ruichang for having a new paper accepted by Geophysical Research Letters! This new article is entitled: "A Novel Experimental Study on Density-driven Instability and Convective Dissolution in Porous Media".

Long-term storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) in geological formations, such as deep saline aquifers, is a promising solution to mitigating the impact of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on global climate change. CO2 dissolved in formation water increases the solution density and can lead to miscible density-driven downward convection, which accelerates the dissolution of CO2 in formation water and thus improves the long-term security of the system. However, investigations of the critical system parameter and critical time scales for triggering downward convection have relied heavily on numerical simulations because of the challenges associated with laboratory experiments. In this study, we used experimental methods to find an empirical linear correlation between reflected visible light intensity and solute concentration, which enabled in situ measurements of solute concentrations in the spatial and temporal domains. Using these novel experimental techniques, we determined the critical Rayleigh-Darcy number and critical time scales for the onset of density-driven instability and convective dissolution.

October 2021

Patrick (Ming) accepted a postdoc position at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Great job and congratulations!!

September 2021

Zihao accepted a postdoc position at Cornell University. Congratulations!

August 2021

Dr. Chen has accepted a faculty position at Stevens Institute of Technology, where he will be joining the Department of Civil, Environmental & Ocean Engineering as an Associate Professor and the Nariman Farvardin Professor of Civil Engineering. The SEWES lab will be moving to Stevens.

It has been our honor and privilege to have the opportunities working with the outstanding faculty at Virginia Tech. In the meanwhile, we look forward to starting the new journey at Stevens Institute of Technology!

Patrick (Ming) has a new journal paper accepted at Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering, which is entitled: "Thermal-Mechanical Modeling of a Rock/Proppant System to Investigate the Role of Shale Creep on Proppant Embedment and Fracture Conductivity". Great job and Congratulations!

July 2021

Congratulations to Zihao Li for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation on July 26th, 2021! This is a great achievement for Zihao. His dissertation is entitled: "Experimental, Theoretical, and Numerical Investigations of Geomechanics/Flow Coupling in Energy Georeservoirs".

June 2021

We are excited to be awarded a 3-year, $800K grant sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE)'s Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP). This project aims to develop full understanding of mechanical-chemical coupling in bentonite THMC processes using experimental and deep learning methods.

We are excited to receive a $28K supplemental grant to support the research in our current NSF project: Using a Well-Controlled Heterogeneous Permeability Field to Study Its Role on Miscible Density-Driven Convection in Porous Media.

Zihao has a new paper accepted at SPE Journal. Congratulations! This paper is entitled: "A Novel Multi-Physics Multi-Scale Multi-Porosity Shale Gas Transport Model for Geomechanics/Flow Coupling in Steady and Transient States".

This work involved laboratory experiments, theoretical model development, and numerical simulation. Specifically, we used a pressure pulse decay permeameter (PDP) to measure shale's apparent permeability evolution under comprehensive combinations of pore and confining pressures. We then developed a novel multi-physics multi-scale multi-porosity shale transport (M3ST) mode to fit and interpret the PDP measurement data, which provides deep insight into the fundamental mechanisms that regulate shale's apparent permeability, such as geomechanics, fluid dynamics and transport, and the Klinkenberg effect.

April 2021

Patrick (Ming) has a new journal paper accepted at Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering. Congratulations! This paper is entitled: "Experimental and Numerical Characterization of Lower Huron Shale as a Heterogeneous Material". In this work, both experimental and numerical methods were developed to investigate the influence of mineral heterogeneity and shale hydration on the strength and deformation behavior of shale.

February 2021

We are excited to receive a three-year, $1.29 million grant from DoD to study the geomechanical and transport properties of granular materials in hydraulic fractures and the applications to subsurface environmental remediation. In this project we "borrow" the idea of hydraulic fracturing from petroleum engineering and apply it to a subsurface environmental system: "Fundamentals of Particulate Amendment Transport and Compaction in Hydraulic Fractures and the Application to Effective Remediation in Low-Permeability Clay"

September 2020

Ruichang's new paper entitled, " The Role of the Spatial Heterogeneity and Correlation Length of Surface Wettability on Two-Phase Flow in a CO2-Water-Rock System", was accepted for publication at Advances in Water Resources. Great job and congratulations!

August 2020

Patrick (Ming)'s new paper entitled, "Influence of Clay Wettability Alteration on Relative Permeability", was accepted for publication at Geophysical Research Letters. Congratulations!
Patrick (Ming)'s new paper entitled, " Experimental and Numerical Investigations of the Role of Proppant Embedment on Fracture Conductivity in Narrow Fractures", was accepted for publication at SPE Journal. Great job and congratulations!
Qingqi Zhao joined our research group. Welcome!

June 2020

Dr. Cheng Chen is promoted to Associate Professor with tenure.

May 2020

Patrick (Ming) has a new journal paper accepted at Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering. The article is entitled: "Numerical Simulation of the Migration and Deposition of Fine Particles in a Proppant-Supported Fracture". Great job!

February 2020

The story about our new NSF and NETL projects is published at Virginia Tech News:

Two fundamental research projects aim to reduce the impact of carbon emissions on climate

Patrick (Ming) has a new journal paper accepted at Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering. The article is entitled "Investigation of the Conductivity of a Proppant Mixture Using an Experiment/Simulation-integrated Approach". Congratulations!

January 2020

Zihao Li has a new paper accepted at Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering. The article is entitled "Using Pressure Pulse Decay Experiments and a Novel Multi-Physics Shale Transport Model to Study the Role of Klinkenberg Effect and Effective Stress on the Apparent Permeability of Shales". Congratulations!!

December 2019

The story about our new NSF and NETL projects is published at Mining Department News:

Two Research Projects Aim to Reduce Carbon Emissions

Hongsheng Wang successfully completed an internship at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).

October 2019

The story about our NEUP (Nuclear Energy University Program) project has been published at Virginia Tech News:

Study has wide-reaching impact on safe storage of nuclear energy waste

August 2019

Dr. Chen was awarded a $480K grant sponsored by DOE-National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL)'s University Coalition for Fossil Energy Research (UCFER) Program. This 2-year project is to develop a machine-learning-based, scale-bridging data assimilation framework with applications to geologic carbon sequestration.

July 2019

The story about our NEUP (Nuclear Energy University Program) project is on line:

Critical Study has Wide Reaching Impact on Security of Nuclear Energy

July 2019

Dr. Chen was awarded a $368K NSF grant in the Division of Earth Sciences (EAR). This 3-year project is to study the fundamentals of miscible density-driven convection in porous media which is encountered in geologic carbon sequestration.

June 2019

Dr. Chen was awarded a $110K grant sponsored by the American Chemical Society - Petroleum Research Fund (ACS-PRF). This 2-year project is to study the fundamentals of proppant compaction and embedment in hydraulic fractures. Hydraulic fracturing is a widely used stimulation method to produce oil and gas from low-permeability shale reservoirs, and proppant is a granular material used to keep hydraulic fractures open during shale oil and gas production.

Patrick (Ming) successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation. Congratulation !!

April 2019

Patrick (Ming) has a new journal paper accepted at Fuel. The article title is: "Comprehensive study of the interactions between the critical dimensionless numbers associated with multiphase flow in 3D porous media". Congratulations !

January 2019

Patrick (Ming) has his second journal paper accepted at SPE Journal. The article is entitled: "Using an Experiment/Simulation-Integrated Approach To Investigate Fracture-Conductivity Evolution and Non-Darcy Flow in a Proppant-Supported Hydraulic Fracture". Congratulations !

Hongsheng Wang and Yuntian Teng joined our research group. Welcome !

December 2018

Zihao Li successfully defended his second M.S. thesis. Congratulation !!

August 2018

Dr. Chen was awarded a $800K grant sponsored by Department of Energy (DOE)'s Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP). This 3-year project is to study the role of temperature on non-Darcian flow in low-permeability porous media and the applications to geologic disposal of high-level nuclear waste.

Ruichang Guo joined our research group. Welcome !

Patrick (Ming) successfully completed a summer internship at Aramco Services Company-Houston.

November 2017

Patrick (Ming) has his first peer-reviewed paper accepted by SPE Journal. The article is entitled: "Interaction Between Proppant Compaction and Single-/Multiphase Flows in a Hydraulic Fracture". Congratulations !

August 2017

Zihao Li joined our research group. Welcome !

June 2017

We were awarded a $175K research grant from the Alpha Foundation.

May 2016

Dr. Chen was awarded a $120K research grant sponsored by the ICTAS Junior Faculty Award.

August 2015

Mr. Patrick (Ming) Fan joined the group as our first Ph.D. student.

August 2015

Dr. Cheng Chen joined Virginia Tech as an assistant professor. The research in his group is focused on subsurface energy, water, and environmental systems (SEWES)

Google Sites

Report abuse