Events

Dr. Behzad Ghanbarian, a Post-Doc Research Fellow in the Center for Petroleum & Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, will give a talk entitled "Modeling Multiphase Flow and Transport in Porous Media" as part of the Claude R. Hocott Graduate Seminar Series. 

Abstract:

Accurate prediction of different modes of transport in porous media, such as hydraulic, electrical, and thermal conductivity is of broad interest in petroleum and chemical engineering.  Most current theoretical treatments use a “bundle of capillary tubes” concept, which, despite its widespread use, is a severely distorted idealization of natural porous media. In contrast, percolation theory provides a reliable and powerful means to model interconnectivity of disordered networks and porous materials. In this presentation scaling concepts are invoked from percolation theory and the effective medium approximation (EMA) to model and predict different modes of transport e.g., hydraulic, electrical, and thermal conductivity, and diffusion.  Universal scaling laws from percolation theory and EMA predict air permeability, electrical conductivity, tortuosity, and diffusion accurately. However, hydraulic and thermal conductivity conform to non-universal scaling meaning that the effect of pore-size distribution, pore geometry, and fluid characteristics are not negligible.

Bio:

Behzad Ghanbarian received his PhD degree in Environmental Sciences from Wright State University, Dayton OH, in April 2014. He got his bachelors (in Water Engineering) from Isfahan University of Technology and his masters (in Irrigation and Drainage) from University of Tehran, Iran. Dr. Ghanbarian is currently a postdoc research fellow at Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department, UT Austin. His main research focuses on modeling multiphase flow and transport in heterogeneous porous media using theoretical and numerical approaches. Overall, he is author and co-author of more than 40 peer-reviewed papers including 30 in International journals (ISI index) with over 230 citations reported in Google Scholar, and an H-index of 10 (Google Scholar). He also is co-author of the third edition of a book entitled “Percolation Theory for Flow in Porous Media”, in the Lecture Notes in Physics series published by Springer. He also received the “Graduate Student Excellence” award at Wright State University in 2013.