Dr. Patrick O'Leary

In Situ Analysis with ParaView Catalyst

High performance computing moves towards exascale where the "FLOPS are free" and data movement is the primary bottleneck.  The current simulation approach, which relies extensively on I/O resources, simply does not or will not scale.  To deliver useful information to the scientist, engineer and/or medical researcher, it is clear that we must manage data movement, perform analysis in situ, and leverage advanced analysis algorithms.  In this talk, Dr. O'Leary describes ParaView Catalyst, a framework for in situ analysis.  By tightly coupling a simulator with ParaView Catalyst, it is possible to circumvent the bottlenecks associated with the cycle of storing and retrieving data for analysis to and from disk.  Dr. O'Leary describes this coupling demonstrating how in situ visualization and analysis pipelines can be nimbly implemented.

Dr. Patrick O'Leary is Assistant Director of Scientific Computing at Kitware, Inc.  He will be presenting his work Friday, April 19 from 12:10 - 1:00 p.m. in the Energy Innovation Center's Encana Auditorium (Room 201).

Download the flyer for Dr. O'Leary's presentation.

Dr. S. Majid Hassanizadeh

Darcy Lecturer - "Capillarity in Porous Media, on Micro- and Macroscale, Revisited"

S. Majid Hassanizadeh, Ph.D., has been a professor of hydrogeology on the faculty of geosciences at Utrecht University since 2004 and is the senior adviser with the Soil and Groundwater Department of Deltares research institute. He earned his B.Sc. from Pahlavi University in Iran, and his M.E. and Ph.D. from Princeton University; all three degrees are in civil engineering. Hassanizadeh has worked at Abadan Institute of Technology and Yekom Consulting Engineers, both in Iran, and the National Institute of Public Health and Environment and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, the latter of which named him an Antoni van Leeuwenhoek professor in 2001-2003. He has also held visiting faculty positions at the University of Notre Dame; University of Bordeaux, France; EPF Lausanne, Switzerland; and Stuttgart University, Germany.

In many soil and aquifer systems, one encounters simultaneous movements of two or more immiscible fluids. These systems are modeled using a modified form of Darcy's law, mass or volume balance equations, and an empirical relationship between capillary pressure and saturation. In this lecture, Dr. Hassanizadeh presented the following topics:

• Explain the general understanding that capillary pressure is equal to the difference in pressures of two fluids. At microscale, this difference is given by the Young-Laplace equation, which prescribes an inverse relationship with the mean radius of curvature.
  At macroscale, the difference in fluid pressures is assumed to be an algebraic empirical function of saturation, as mentioned above.
• Provide a unifying approach to the theory of capillarity based on rational thermodynamics. 
• Present alternative definitions of capillary pressure on both micro- and macroscales. In particular, Hassanizadeh will make a clear distinction between capillary pressure and pressure difference of fluids.
• Show that the difference in fluid pressures is a function of boundary conditions and dynamic properties of the system, such as flow rate or dynamic viscosities, based on theoretical, experimental, and computational results.
• Propose that the capillary pressure must be an intrinsic property of the fluids/solid system and independent of dynamics of the system.
• Introduce specific interfacial area (area of fluid/ fluid interfaces per unit volume of porous medium) as a new state variable to account for the fact that capillary pressure is a surface phenomenon and not a volumetric one.
• Present theoretical, experimental, and computational evidences that show the empirical capillary pressure-saturation curve should be replaced with the capillary pressure-saturation-interfacial area surface rooted in thermodynamic theory.

Download Dr. Hassanizadeh's abstract

Dr. Zee Ma

"Petroleum Resource Evaluation and Reservoir Characterization Modeling"

Dr. Zee Ma received his Ph.D. in Mathematical Geology and Geo-informatics in 1987 from the Institute National Polytechnique de Lorraine (INPL) - Ecole de Geologie de Nancy (France). For over 23 years, he has worked for major oil and service companies, including Total - Elf (Pau, France), Western Atlas (now Baker Hughes), ExxonMobil, and Schlumberger. He is currently a principal geoscientist at Schlumberger (Denver, Colorado), a position he has held since 2004. Dr. Ma has conducted and/or advised on nearly a hundred reservoir studies from around the world, and published many articles on reservoir characterization, modeling, and mathematical geosciences applications.

Dr. Ma's presentation addressed hydrocarbon resource evaluation which integrates multiple disciplines, including geology, geophysics, petro physics, and reservoir engineering. This multifaceted problem must be solved through integration of these disciplines for accurate resource evaluation and management. In this presentation, he discussed a number of key issues in subsurface formation and resource evaluation, including problems encountered in the analysis and modeling of seismic attributes, net-to-gross porosity, fluid saturation, and permeability. Though not presently well known, failure to address these issues can lead to significant inaccuracies in resource evaluation and reservoir management. He also discussed a number of advanced reservoir characterization and modeling techniques that are used to solve these important problems.