Activitties:

The objective of the project is the development and application of coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical and chemical (THMC) formulations to reservoir engineering problems. The main goals are summarized as follows:

1. Analysis of geomechanical integrity of reservoir and cap rocks responsible for fluid trapping. Deformations induced by fluid injection, subsidence and geological fault activation. Geomechanical modelling of reactive fluid injection, considering coupled multiphase flow with temperatures and chemical effects induced by injection.
2. Analysis of geochemical integrity of reservoir and cap rocks responsible for fluid trapping. The types of processes considered in the reactive transport formulation must include hydrolysis, complex formation, oxidation/reduction reactions, acid/base reactions, precipitation/dissolution of minerals and cation exchange. Both kinetically controlled and equilibrium-controlled reactions must be incorporated.
3. Implementation of THMC constitutive models for the involved materials. Stress-strain behaviour of rocks (saline, brittle, clayey, carbonates…), considering the effects of environmental variables such as temperature, capillarity pressure and saline concentration in material behaviour. Porosity and permeability changes due to geomechanical and geochemical actions.
4. Validation of a fully coupled THMC formulation (in house finite element code) that combines an already existing and operational THM approach with the equations of reactive transport in a fully coupled manner. Benchmark runs with commercial codes (CMG).
5. Application of optimization algorithms to parameter estimation and CO2 injection.
   
   All this aspects are essential to the prediction of the possibility of leakage especially during reservoir pressurization, which may cause economic as well as environmental damages. Special attention will be given to the phenomena that can take place in carbonate reservoirs capped by saline rocks.
   
   
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