Porous media flows | School of Engineering | The University of Aberdeen

Porous media flows

Dubravka Pokrajac, Yukie Tanino, Jan Vinogradov, Yingfang Zhou, Kejian Wu

Our research focusses porous media flows in various environmental and engineered systems such as groundwater aquifers, coastal beaches, gravel beds of natural streams, and oil & gas reservoirs. Our main goal is to advance our knowledge of the fundamental processes occurring at a large range of spatial (nm-km) and temporal (s-years) scales, in order to develop better understanding and predictive tools for enhanced design and management of these systems. We apply a range of methodologies, including laboratory experiments, numerical simulations and theoretical analysis.

Recent external projects

2022-2025	Improved hydrogen geological storage via zeta potential measurements, Australian Research Council Discovery scheme (DP220102907), (J. Vinogradov, £118k)
2020-2023	Application of Double-Averaging Methodology to modelling of flow in compound channels with vegetation on floodplains, Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia (D. Pokrajac £8.2K)
2019-2022	Pore scale simulation of oil migration and reservoir formulation, PetrolChina Research Institute Northwest Branch (Y. Zhou).
2019-2022	Miscible-CO₂/Chemical Injection EOR – a Comprehensive Study, Petroleum Technology Development Fund, Nigeria (J. Vinogradov, £51k)
2017-2022	Stream-aquifer interactions and their influence on flow regimes and fluvial processes in ephemeral streams, United Utilities Water PLC (D. Pokrajac £140k)
2020-2021	Level set method based tool for automatic in-situ contact angle and curvature measurements, Total (Y. Zhou).
2020-2021	Multiscale numerical and experimental approaches on Multiphysics problems in porous media, British Council and NSFC (Y. Zhou).
2019-2020	Prototyping contact angle measurement, Total (Y. Zhou)
2018-2019	Zeta potential measurements in intact core samples at reservoir conditions with the application to enhanced oil recovery via miscible CO2 injection and CO2 geological storage’, Edith Cowan University, Australia (J. Vinogradov, £50k).
2017-2019	Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) characterization of wettability and pore scale modelling of multiphase flow in unconventional reservoirs, RSE-NSFC Joint project (Y. Zhou).
2017-2018	The effect of wettability distribution on flow function in tight reservoir formation by direct pore scale modelling, State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation (Y. Zhou).
2016-2018	Fractal characterization and pore scale modeling of capillary flow in porous media, The Royal Society, International Exchange Scheme (Y. Zhou).
2016-2018	Modelling hyporheic exchange flows of natural streams in Palestine, Israel and the UK, British Council (D. Pokrajac, £100k)
2016-2017	Local wettability variation on seal and reservoir rocks for CO geological sequestration, pore scale modelling and direct imaging, UKCCSRC International collaboration fund (Y. Zhou).
2012-2016	Flood MEMORY: Multi-Event Modelling Of Risk & recovery, EPSRC (D. Pokrajac, £214k), total project value £1.9M.

Recent PhD projects

2019 - present	Abdulrauf Bello	Macroscopic fluxes and forces in porous media flows
2019 - present	Rui Li	Pore-Scale Modelling of Geophysical Properties in Hydrate Bearing Sediment
2022	Haruna Dantata Salihu	Systematic Investigation of Interfacial Tension Measurements of Brine and Hydrocarbon System with CO₂ at Reservoir Conditions: CO₂-EOR and Carbon Storage
2022	Lawrence Opoku Boampong	Compositional Modelling of Sour Gas Alternating Low Salinity Waterflooding in Carbonate Reservoirs
2022	Miftah Hidayat	Electrokinetic measurements in intact core samples at reservoir conditions with the application to CO₂ geological sequestration
2022	Faisal Ur Rahman Awan	Coal bed methane characterisation using streaming potential measurements, (co-supervision), Edith Cowan University, Australia
2022	Wei Yong	A molecular dynamics study of wettability in the context of enhanced oil recovery processes
2020	Alexandra Roslin	Pore scale properties of coals
2020	Anelechi ibekwe	Impact of grain roughness on the pore scale distribution of immiscible fluids in porous media
2019	Nacha Atiwurcha	Miscible-CO₂/chemical injection EOR – a comprehensive study
2018	Tinuola Udoh	Productivity Enhancement in a Combined Low Salinity Water and Bio-surfactant Injection Projects
2018	Yogendra Kumar	Experimental and field investigation of fluid flow in fractured rocks using self-potential measurements
2017	Zaibin Lin	Integrated numerical model of coastal wave, pile and soil and groundwater
2017	Michele Starnoni	Modelling single and two-phase flow on micro-CT images of rock samples

Selected papers

Hidayat, M., Sarmadivaleh, M., Derksen, J., Vega-Maza, D., Iglauer, S., Vinogradov, J. (2022) Zeta potential of a natural clayey sandstone saturated with carbonated NaCl solutions at supercritical CO₂ conditions. Geophysical Research Letters, 49(15), e2022GL099277.
Amrouche, F., Xu, D., Short, M., Iglauer, S., Vinogradov, J. and Blunt, M.J. (2022) Experimental study of electrical heating to enhance oil production from oil-wet carbonate reservoirs. Fuel, 324(A), 124559.
Vinogradov, J., Hidayat, M., Kumar, K., David Healy, D. and Comte, J-C. (2022). Laboratory measurements of zeta potential in fractured Lewisian gneiss: implications for the characterization of flow in fractured crystalline bedrock. Applied Sciences, 12(1), 180.
Vinogradov, J., Hidayat, M., Derksen, J., Vega-Maza, D., Iglauer, S., Sarmadivaleh, M., Jougnot, D., Azaroual, M., Leroy, P. (2022) Predictive surface complexation model of the calcite-water interface: the impact of high concentration and complex composition of brines. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 609, 852-867.
Hidayat, M., Sarmadivaleh, M., Derksen, J., Vega-Maza, D., Iglauer, S., Vinogradov, J. (2022) Zeta potential of CO₂-rich aqueous solutions in contact with intact sandstone sample at temperatures of 23°C and 40°C and pressures up to 10.0 MPa. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 607, 1226-1238.
Li, R., Zhou, Y., Yang, J. and Zhan, W. (2022) Pore-Scale Modeling of Elastic Properties in Hydrate-Bearing Sediments using High Resolution Synchrotron Radiation Images. Marine Petroleum Geology, 145, 105864.
Starnoni, M., Pokrajac, D. (2020) On the macroscopic momentum balance equation for the fluid-fluid interfaces in two-phase porous media flows, Advances in Water Resources 135, 103487.
Yang, J. and Zhou, Y., (2020) An automatic in-situ contact angle determination based on level set method. Water Resources Research, 56(7), e2020WR027107.
Luo, W., Wang, J., Wang, L. and Zhou, Y. (2020) An alternative BEM of modeling flow behavior of discretely and continuously fractured reservoir by use of a semi-analytical approach. Water Resources Research, 56 (5), e2019WR026581.
Wu, H., Zhou, Y., Yao, Y. and Wu, K., (2019) Image based fractal characterization of micro-fracture in coal, Fuel, 239, 53-62.
Ballio, F., Pokrajac, D., Radice, A., and Sadabadi, S.A.H. (2018) Lagrangian and Eulerian description of bed-load transport, Journal of Geophysical Research - Earth Surface 123(2): 384-408.
Leonardi, A., Pokrajac, D., Roman, F., Zanello, F., Armenio, V. (2018) Surface and subsurface contributions to the build-up of forces on bed particles, Journal of Fluid Mechanics 851(25), 558-572.
Starnoni, M., Pokrajac, D. (2018) Numerical study of the effects of contact angle and viscosity ratio on the dynamics of snap-off through porous media, Advances in Water Resources 111, 70-85.
Zhou, Y., Hatzignatiou, D.G. and Helland, J.O. (2017) On the estimation of CO2 capillary entry pressure: Implications on geological CO2 storage, International journal of greenhouse gas control, 63, 26-36.
Pokrajac, D. and de Lemos, M.J.S. (2015) Spatial averaging over a variable volume and its application to boundary layer flows over permeable walls, Journal of Hydraulic Engineering 141(4), 04014087.