Flow and transport of porous media

Research Attributes

Porous media are involved in many engineering applications. Our ability to understand and exploit porous media is at the heart of many challenges that are essential to building a sustainable future for our society. Typical applications are those related to groundwater flow modelling and contaminant transport in groundwater and groundwater, but porous media are also relevant in many industrial applications, such as tank engineering, membranes and fuel cells. While flow and transport processes typically occur in pores on a micron scale, engineering applications often require consideration of large domains, which can extend over km or more. Further challenges that arise in practical applications are the coupling of flow and transport processes with chemical reactions or the presence of multiple fluid phases in porous space.
Our research aims to build innovative models and approaches to improve our ability to predict and control flow and transport in porous media. Specific research topics include:

• Reactive transport of contaminants in soil and groundwater
• Scale modeling of flow and transport pores
• Multi-scale characterization of heterogeneous porous media
• Variable density flow in coastal aquifers
• Quantification of uncertainty and calibration of the stochastic model