Digital Rock Physics

Rasool Ahmad, Hanfeng Zhai

Real-time predictions of the mechanical properties of rocks from digital images can scale up the design process in many energy industries. These models are crucial for optimizing exploration and production strategies, leading to improved recovery rates and reduced operational costs. What's more, digital rock physics has significant implications for environmental applications.

 Understanding the behavior of porous media from multiple scales can aid in the assessment and remediation of contaminated sites, such as groundwater aquifers polluted by industrial activities or natural disasters.

The group has developed hierarchical homogenization and machine learning methods to efficiently estimate multiscale mechanical properties.