Events

Dr. Anthony Kovscek, Professor at Stanford University, will give a talk entitled "Experimental Microfluidics to Improve Mechanistic Understanding of Two-Phase Flow" as part of the Claude R. Hocott Graduate Seminar Series.

Abstract:

The physical mechanisms of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) are more complicated and less understood in comparison to primary and secondary recovery mechanisms.  Nevertheless, accurate and highly calibrated simulation models are needed to make decisions about field development and investments. Although experimental results at all scales are used to develop such models, fluid flow ultimately occurs through the pore and fracture networks of rocks, sands, and shales. Hence, pore-scale flow is often the smallest scale considered.  This talk focuses on pore-scale and macroscopic-scale results obtained using etched silicon micromodels. Such micromodels have the pore network pattern of a rock or idealized medium etched into a silicon wafer. Geometrical properties of grains and pore-wall roughness are similar to actual rock. Importantly, these micromodels permit direct, high-magnification, time-lapse observations of fluid movement through pores. Experimental results relevant to a variety of EOR processes are reported including polymer flooding, foam flow in fractures, and water-alternating gas mobility control. Extensions to current research and data analysis are also featured including particle tracking/imaging velocimetery and direct numerical simulation of pore scale flows.

Bio:

Dr. Anthony Kovscek is a Professor of Energy Resource Engineering in the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University. Dr. Kovscek earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Washington, and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. His research is interested in the recovery of unconventional hydrocarbon resources and mitigating carbon emissions from fossil fuels via geological sequestration of greenhouse gases. His research group examines the physics of flow through porous media at length scales that vary from the pore to the laboratory to the reservoir. The organizing themes are flow imaging to delineate the mechanisms of multiphase flow (oil, water, and gas) in porous media and the synthesis of models from experimental, theoretical, and field data. In all of his work, physical observations, obtained mainly from laboratory and field measurements, are interwoven with theory.