The subsurface holds enormous potential for climate resilience and carbon reduction. Applications such as CO2 sequestration, hydrogen storage, geothermal energy, and groundwater management all rely on fluid flow through porous rock across length scales and depths from meters to kilometers and time scales from minutes to millenia. 

To make the most of this potential we need to 1) understand how fluids flow through porous media, and 2) be able to engineer improved injection strategies tailored to each application.

This three year fully funded PhD will use OpenFOAM (a C++ based open-source computational fluid dynamics modelling software) to develop a robust, general-purpose modelling framework to investigate the potential of pulsed injection protocols in porous media for a variety of applications, and explore questions on how pulsed flow affects:

• the transport of fine particles such as bacteria or clay and the injection of non-Newtonian fluids such as cement grout and drilling mud
• conjugate heat transfer and adiabatic thermal effects of flow pulsation, and thermal implications of long-term pulsing a compressible phase.
• capillary trapping in realistic representations of reservoir rock geometry, including in water-, oil- and mixed-wettability systems. 

The project seeks to identify the underlying mechanisms of pulsed flow and assess its practical benefits, including operational efficiency and reduced carbon footprints. While the PhD is primarily focussed on computational modelling, there may be possibility for the research to include laboratory experiments also, depending on the interests of the student. 
 
The research builds on previous funded research and on-going collaboration with several industry and research stakeholders in the UK and in Australia. There will be opportunities for the student to engage with these partners throughout the project, for example to use data from CO2CRC’s Otway International Test Centre, and to visit Geoscience Australia in Canberra who will provide 1,000,000 CPU hours of high-performance computer time.

The successful applicant will join the Centre for Ground Engineering & Energy Geosciences, a dynamic multidisciplinary group with over 15 staff members, 40 PhD students, state-of-the-art facilities, and a research group dedicated to CO2 storage. These facilities include the new IM3AGES national facility located at Strathclyde that is equipped with a TESCAN DynaTOM X-ray scanner for in-situ core-flooding and rheological experiments (the first of its kind in the UK), a Zeiss Versa 730 X-ray scanner with diffraction contrast tomography for 3D mineralogical mapping (first of its kind in Europe), a Nikon 225kV X-ray scanner with 10kN loading frame for larger rock samples, and the high-end computing and software for image processing. 

Training and Support

All training relating to the research will be provided.

In addition, you will complete formal training leading to a Postgraduate Certificate in Researcher Professional Development (PG Cert RPD), the first UK academic award recognising postgraduate research skills. This training, combined with research, publication, presentation at international conferences, and teaching opportunities, will provide a multidisciplinary skillset preparing you for careers in academia and industry.