Research visit to Stanford University for Ph.D. candidate Pål Næverlid Sævik

The mobile researcher, Pål Næverlid Sævik, started his Ph. D. at the University of Bergen on 1. sept., 2011. He has been working with analytical homogenization methods applied to fractured geological reservoirs, which is of importance for applications to petroleum engineering, groundwater flow, geothermal energy and carbon dioxide sequestration. Sævik is invited to stay at Stanford University in California, USA, for five months as a guest researcher. Stanford has a long standing research effort in fractu re modeling, with modeling techniques that is complementary to what the research group at UoB has been working with. A synthesis of, or even a first rigorous comparison between the two approaches will thus be extremely useful to both groups. Stanford re searchers Prof. Louis Durlofsky and Research Associate Mohammad Karimi-Fard, will be part of this project. Karimi-Fard has proposed a method for simulation of discrete fracture matrix (DFM) models, which has subsequently been extended by the research grou p in Bergen. Collaboration will include developing an approach for coupling analytical homogenization of fine-scale fractures with a DFM approach for handling dominating fractures, based on our previous research, which gives crucial knowledge on the appl ication range for several homogenization methods. Another part of the project will be to understand how geological uncertainty, ever present when working in the subsurface, can be modeled for fractured systems. This is an open and outstanding problem in the research community. Stanford researchers Prof. Jef Caers, and his postdoctoral student Andre Jung will be heavily involved in this part of the project. The research visit will allow Sævik to integrate his research with methods used by other research communities, allowing him to present his ideas to a wider audience. The complementing methods and techniques learned at Stanford will also benefit the UoB research community upon his return.