We are very happy to announce that two INTPART applications directly connected to PoreLab were selected for funding under the 2019 RCN call. INTPART – the “Programme for International Partnerships for Excellent Education, Research and Innovation” – aims at the development of long-term relations between Norwegian higher education and research institutions in a group of eight priority partner countries. A core goal of both INTPART projects is the promotion of long-term collaboration between the partners. This will be achieved by the organization of conferences, both in Norway and abroad, exchange of researchers (both to and from PoreLab) and the promotion of joint Masters and PhD programmes. A brief description of the funded applications follows:
Non-Newtonian Flow in Porous Media
Led by Prof. Alex Hansen (NTNU), this project aims at the description of the flow of non-Newtonian fluids in porous media. The project is particularly focused on the development of differential equations to explain such flows. A key point to notice here: the crucially important problem of multiphasic flows of immiscible Newtonian fluids in porous media is directly linked (in the continuum limit) to that of the flow of a single non-Newtonian fluid (see reference: A. Hansen, S. Sinha, D. Bedeaux, S. Kjelstrup, M. Aa. Gjennestad and M. Vassvik, Relations between seepage velocities in immiscible two-phase flow in porous media, Transp. Porous Media, 125, 565 (2018)). This point elevates the importance of the understanding of non-Newtonian porous media flows, as the knowledge derived from this investigation may prove relevant to solving the outstanding problem of upscaling in multiphasic porous media flows: to derive meaningful continuum equations based on the pore-scale hydrodynamics.
To achieve its objectives, this project will utilize expertise from the network of international collaborators in France (led by Dr. Laurent Talon, Laboratoire FAST, Université de Paris-Saclay and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and in Brazil (led by Professor José Soares de Andrade Jr., Complex Systems Laboratory, Universidade Federal do Ceará). Both groups have extensive expertise on statistical mechanics, modeling of complex systems and the analysis of non-Newtonian flows.
COLOSSAL: Collaboration on “Flow across Scales”
The COLOSSAL project is led by Profs. François Renard (UiO) and Knut Jørgen Måløy (UiO). It is a truly interdisciplinary collaboration bringing together researchers from 8 different universities in 4 countries (Brazil, France, USA and Norway). The collaboration includes partners from very diverse fields such as: Geosciences (geology, glaciology, geophysics, hydrogeology), Physics (condensed matter physics, fluid mechanics, statistical mechanics), and Civil Engineering (geomechanics). Common to all partners is the necessity to address the problem of flow and deformation in porous and fractured media across a wide range of length and time scales, and the plethora of complex phenomena that follow such flows. The collaboration is organized into country-specific work packages, led by Marcel Moura (Brazil), Tanguy Le Borgne (France) and Luiza Angheluta (USA).
Partners in the project will be stimulated to work across their own field of expertise, bringing the tools they know well to the analysis of problems they may be not too familiar with. For example, analytical methods on the analysis of multi-scale intermittent phenomena developed by the Brazilian partners will be employed on the study of earthquakes and groundwater flow data gathered by partners in the USA.
In addition to the organization of workshops and exchange of researchers, the collaboration also includes a series of geological field trips to study active faults in California, fossil faults in Norway and an aquifer near Rennes.