Postdoctoral fellows and PhD Candidates

Postdoctoral Fellows

Gaute Linga

NJORD Centre for Studies of the Physics of the Earth, University of Oslo,

In my research, I study the complexity of fluid flow through porous media undergoing deformation due to e.g. fracturing and precipitation-dissolution processes. This is done by combining numerical simulations on the pore-scale and below with methods from statistical physics. The research includes development of models and numerical methods for simulation of two-phase flow coupled with solute transport and complicated boundary conditions, as well as carrying out computational studies which yield direct comparison to experiments, e.g. dynamic X-ray tomography data.

Supervisors: François Renard and Eirik Grude Flekkøy

E-mail: gaute.linga@mn.uio.no

Fredrik Kvalheim Eriksen

Department of Physics, University of Oslo

My research is focused on deforming porous media and pattern formation during fluid flow. These processes primarily involve mechanical deformation and fracturing driven by high pore fluid overpressure, but I have also worked on slow transformation caused by reactive flow in fracture channels. The work is based on tabletop experiments, where we put porous media (real or synthetic) in flow cells and impose various flow conditions. To uncover characteristic dynamics of the systems, we usually analyze high speed camera footage, pressure recordings, and/or acoustic measurements. The current focus is to study the deformation and fracturing of elastic, disorderly bonded porous media due to one phase flow at constant overpressure. I often collaborate with researchers at the University of Strasbourg on deformable porous media and fracturing, and I also take part in other projects on fluid and granular flows with e.g. researchers in Poland and India.

Supervisors: Knut Jørgen Måløy/Eirik Grude Flekkøy

E-mail: f.k.eriksen@fys.uio.no

Haili Long-Sanouiller

Department of Geoscience and Petroleum, NTNU

My research is about to characterize wettability of multiphase flow in porous media by using X-ray mCT technique. Historically, it has always been a challenge to make a proper characterization of wettability in traditional lab experiments. With the development of mCT, it is possible to study local in-situ wettability and contact angle of fluid-fluid interface curvatures based on processed mCT images. The results can be used as input to build models for wettability alteration based on local properties such as pore-size (radius), pore-volume, pore-wall curvature, mineralogy, clay content, etc. by analyzing a smaller set of samples to predict local wettability conditions for samples under similar conditions.

Supervisors: Ole Torsæter / Carl Fredrik Berg

E-mail: haili.long-sanouiller@ntnu.no

Subhadeep Roy

Department of Physics, NTNU

I am Subhadeep Roy. I have joined PoreLab on August 1, 2018 and will be working with Prof. Alex Hansen. My work focuses on modeling flow of fluid within porous materials. I will mainly start by observing a two-phase flow in a random network and later introduce complexity to the model in order to understand the behavior of porous medium. Also the second focus will be understanding failure events (dynamics, strength, predictability etc.) through the study of disordered systems. I have done my PhD. in Theoretical Physics (statistical mechanics and disordered systems) where we have closely observed how strength of disorder and range of interaction can effect the static and dynamic behavior of a disordered system which is guided by threshold activated dynamics. Also I have spent 1.5 years working at Tokyo University (Earthquake research institute, Dept. of Geophysics) where we have explored some basic laws of seismic events (Omori law, Gutenberg Law) through the time evolution of a disordered systems out of equilibrium.

E-mail: subhadeep.roy@ntnu.no

PhD Candidates

Fazel Mirzaei

Department of Physics, NTNU

I’m working on computational imaging, ranging from medical to industrial and environmental applications. I’m working on multiphase flow visualization as a PhD candidate at NTNU. Being able to quantitatively observe multiphase liquid flow in porous materials would be a key enabler for solving a wide range of challenges deeply rooted in today’s societal needs. Examples include understanding the transport of pollutants in the soil and in ground water, the potential escape of sequestrated CO2, the distribution of drugs in living tissue, and the uptake of water and minerals by plants. X-ray tomography has during the last decade developed at a rapid pace but has the fundamental limitation that materials of similar electron density give weak image contrast. As a goal, our working hypothesis is that despite flux limitations, liquid flow dynamics in porous media can be quantitatively imaged by neutron tomography if suitable isotopic contrast variation is combined with concepts borrowed from recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and information theory.

Supervisor: Dag Werner Breiby

E-mail: fazel.mirzaei@ntnu.no

Scholar google: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3No7MBQAAAAJ&hl=en

Hyejeong Cheon

Department of Physics, NTNU

The project for my Ph.D. is part of the project named PredictCUI: modelling to predict water liquid and vapor migration through porous media.

Moisture migration in porous insulation layer from water penetration causes corrosion, so called Corrosion Under Insulation (CUI). In oil and gas industry, insulation layer surrounds pipes and it is observed frequently that pipes are corroded due to CUI. Corrosion is directly related to process efficiency and safety, so it is important to predict where CUI could occur.

Specifically, we will develop a mathematical model of water liquid and vapor (two-phase flow) transports in pore network to understand how and where CUI occurs. Study will be conducted on multi-scale modelling with the help of statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and numerical methods. Researchers including experimentalists from industry partners, NTNU EPT (Department of Energy and Process Engineering) and SINTEF will also collaborate in this project.

Supervisors: Alex Hansen and Øivind Wilhelmsen

E-mail: Hyejeong.Cheon@ntnu.no

Hursanay Fyhn

Department of Physics, NTNU

The aim is to develop the theoretical framework that describes immiscible two-phase flow in porous media. More specifically, the focus is on viscous fingers that occur when a non-wetting fluid pushes a more viscous wetting fluid during a drainage process. The task is carried out through solving constitutive equations and comparing them with the results from numerical dynamic network model and experiments.

Supervisor: Alex Hansen and Knut Jørgen Måløy

E-mail: Hursanay.Fyhn@ntnu.no

Sebastian Everard Nordby Price

Department of Chemistry, NTNU

Encapsulating the drug into nanoparticles (NPs) before transporting them to its target, is a common way to minimize the toxicity towards healthy tissue. However, a challenge in the use of NPs, is to achieve sufficiently dosage and homogenous distribution of the NPs in the target tissue. Lately, focused ultrasound (FUS) has been shown to improve the delivery of NPs and drugs.

I will in this project be working theoretically on developing models for transport of molecules through tissue/porous media from data given by Caroline Einen, who will be doing the experimental laboratory work. Our goal is to reveal the transport mechanisms for NPs in tissues, and create a predictive model for delivery of NP to tumours.

Supervisors: Anders Lervik, Signe Kjelstrup, Magnus Aashammer Gjennestad and Ruth Catharina de Lange Davies

E-mail: sebastian.n.price@ntnu.no

Caroline Einen

Department of Physics, NTNU

Nanoparticles (NPs) loaded with therapeutic agents can be used as vesicles for delivery of drugs to tumors for reduced toxic effects in healthy tissue. A specific approach to achieve improved targeted delivery is to combine NPs with microbubbles (MB) and focused ultrasound treatments (FUS). Application of FUS in the presence of MBs can cause the MB to oscillate or implode, which in turn give mechanical forces that facilitate extravasation of the NPs from the vasculature and further push the NPs further into tissue, a strategy that has shown enhanced delivery of drugs to tumors.

My project aims to increase the understanding of the underlying mechanisms governing the success of NP delivery to tumor tissue using the MB and FUS combination. My work is a part of the research project ““Ultrasound-mediated transport of nanoparticles in tissue: Creating a predictive model combining theory, simulations and experiments” funded by the Research Council of Norway. I will investigate the process of NP transport in tissue experimentally, where PhD candidate Sebastian Price will attempt to make a predictive model based on the experimental data, resulting in a tool for designing the optimum FUS treatment for effective NP delivery

Supervisor: Catharina de Lange Davies, Rune Hansen, Einar Sulheim and Signe Kjelstrup

E-mail: Caroline.Einen@ntnu.no

Håkon Pedersen

Department of Physics, NTNU

The topic of my PhD is the thermodynamics and statistical mechanics of immiscible two-phase flow in porous media. These systems can span over an extreme range of length scales. At the scale of individual pores and phase-boundaries, a few nanometers at the smallest, the physical picture is quite different from what is seen at macroscopic scales. Determining the macroscopic flow from the physics at the pore scale, dubbed the «upscaling problem», is what we will attempt to solve.

In the end, the macroscopic phase flow will be described by a general thermodynamic framework, connected to the statistical mechanics of the system. These thermodynamic relations are supplied by constitutive equations which relate the macroscopic flow of the fluid to driving forces. In recent years, it has been shown that a non-linear relation between flow and driving force, e.g. pressure, might occur in porous media systems.

To solve the upscaling problem, we will use numerical network models to examine the predictions of our theory, and verify our results with experiments performed at the PoreLab node at UiO

Supervisors: Alex Hansen and Knut Jørgen Måløy

E-mail: Hakon.Pedersen@ntnu.no

Vilde Bråten

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, NTNU

Nano-systems are molecular systems of a size so small that the rules of classical physics no longer apply. However, they are also too large to be described by quantum physics. In our research, we study these systems using molecular simulations, which explicitly model single atoms, and the interactions between them. We focus on understanding how the nano-systems work, and how their thermodynamic properties change with system size.

The utlimate goal is to develop thermodynamic methodology that can be used to describe connections between heat and energy in molecular machines. In that way, we can explore the potential of these devices in technological and scientific applications.

Supervisor: Sondre Kvalvåg Schnell and Øivind Wilhelmsen

E-mail: vilde.braten@ntnu.no

Tomislav Vukovic

Department of Geoscience and Petroleum, NTNU

The topic of my PhD is optimization of screening criteria for green enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods. A well-designed screening process is crucial for the success of the green chemical EOR. Currently there are many uncertainties in process induced by the oversimplification of the procedures or by the lack of full understanding of the recovery mechanisms. Therefore the aim of my PhD is to describe oil mobilization process and recovery mechanisms in porous medium based on the dynamic emulsification behavior in self-designed oil traps using 2D micromodels. Additionally, zeta and streaming potential measurements will be utilized for the wettability alteration investigation. Extracted data will be used for the optimization of the screening criteria.

Supervisor: Antje van der Net, Umer Farooq and Ole Torsæter

E-mail: Tomislav.Vukovic@ntnu.no

Beatrice Baldelli

Department of Physics, UiO

I study gravity-stabilized flow, with lighter fluid flowing in a system initially filled with heavier fluid, over a self-affine surface. I am interested in two related systems: flow in the presence of temperature gradients, and isothermal flow for a solution with varying solute concentration. I run simulations of these systems through the coupled Lattice Boltzmann Method, in order to investigate the effect of buoyancy and geometry on the flow.

Supervisors: Eirik Grude Flekkøy/Knut Jørgen Måløy/Gaute Linga

E-mail: beatrice.baldelli@fys.uio.no

Joachim Falck Brodin

Department of Physics, UiO

Joachim’s research is centered around experimental studies of flow in porous media in a 3D set-up. The majority of the experimental work conducted in the field has been on 2D systems. His work includes the development and optimization of a 3D scanner, based on optical index matching of fluids and the solid, porous medium.

Currently he is focusing on the interplay between gravitational, capillary and viscous forces.

Supervisors: Knut Jørgen Måløy/Eirik Grude Flekkøy

E-mail: j.f.brodin@fys.uio.no

Marco Sauermoser

Department of Chemistry, NTNU

The flow field plate in a proton exchange membrane is a crucial part for its performance and has a big potential for optimization. During the course of this PhD project with the title “Energy efficient PEM fuel cells”, the aim is to achieve an increase in efficiency of said fuel cell by using the principle of uniform entropy production used in non-equilibrium thermodynamics. This can be achieved by using bio-inspired flow fields, which are based on e.g. lungs or leaves. Models will be created to find out the most efficient flow field plates and then tested against reference designs like serpentine pattern in a fuel cell test station.

Supervisors: Signe Kjelstrup/Bruno G. Pollet/Dag Dysthe

E-mail: marco.sauermoser@ntnu.no

Olav Galteland

Department of Chemistry, NTNU

Fluid flow in porous media due to a pressure gradient is described by a Darcy-like law, which has shown to fail for small pore sizes and/or low pressure gradients. There is no description of the flow for other driving forces than the pressure gradient. Examples where fluid flow is important are found in many technological applications, such as membranes, fuel cells, sea water desalination, and oil and natural gas recovery. In this project non-equilibrium thermodynamics (NET) will be applied to give a coherent thermodynamic description of the flow, which will include other driving forces, such as a viscous, capillary, gravitational, osmotic, chemical, and thermal forces. Non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) simulations will be used to examine the NET theory.

Supervisors: Signe Kjelstrup/Bjørn Hafskjold/Dick Bedeaux

E-mail: olav.galteland@ntnu.no

Seunghan Song

Department of Physics, NTNU

I have been studying silicon alloy micro-core fibers in glass cladding. Using an in-situ optical imaging technique we have observed the flow of liquid alloy droplets through the silicon matrix. My project goal is to understand the phenomena of liquid-solid flows under temperature gradient in semiconductor alloy core fibers through experiments. Our research topic is not only interesting for a deeper understanding of solid-liquid flows but can also be a guide to developing precise micro-structures in semiconductor core fibers for optical and optoelectronic applications.

Supervisors: Ursula Gibson/Alex Hansen

E-mail: seunghan.song@ntnu.no

Kristian Stølevik Olsen

Department of Physics, University of Oslo

Patterns that emerge on macroscopic scales due to stochastic laws on smaller scales are ubiquitous in Nature. The formation and properties of these spatial structures are of great interdisciplinary interest as they appear throughout the sciences, from biology to pure mathematics. Using tools like the renormalization group and random field models I study various aspects of these spatial structures. In particular, I study geometry-induced anomalous diffusion, where the spatial geometry in which the particles diffuse require microscopic laws that do not belong to the familiar Gaussian universality class.

E-mail: k.s.olsen@fys.uio.no

Mohammad Hossein Golestan

Department of Geoscience and Petroleum, NTNU

Pore-scale imaging and modeling has matured to a routine service in the oil and gas industry, specially during Enhanced Oil recovery (EOR) investigations. One of the EOR methods is Low Salinity Waterflooding (LSW) which is a combination of different mechanisms, including wettability alteration and osmotic pressure differences. Osmosis is a recently discovered mechanisms, where oil droplets acts as semi-permeable membranes for water. Transport of water over the semi-permeable membrane expands inaccessible higher saline water and induces pressure differences. the saline water expansion can relocate oil and open new water pathways. Such relocation can lead to a microscopic diversion mechanism, thereby increasing the oil recovery. the aim of my PhD studies is to use Lattice Boltzmann simulation method to assess the effect of osmosis during LSW.

E-mail: mohammad.h.golestan@ntnu.no

Kim Roger Kristiansen

Department of Chemistry, NTNU

Low-temperature industrial waste heat is a largely untapped energy resource. Existing methods for converting low-temperature waste heat typically do not exceed 15 % of the Carnot limit. My research capitalizes on recent developments in research on thermal osmosis, which suggest that power production by thermo-osmotic pressure can greatly exceed current methods in efficiency. I aim to study the potential to use low-temperature waste heat in order to simultaneously purify water and produce mechanical power, by exploiting a thermal driving force for water transport through nanoporous membranes. My work combines theoretical insight through the theory of non-equilibrium thermodynamics and hydrodynamics, with experimental work for determining the empirical coefficients in the theory.

E-mail: kim.kristiansen@ntnu.no

Astrid Fagertun Gunnarshaug

Department of Chemistry, NTNU

Lithium ion batteries are temperature sensitive. Charging and discharging of batteries give rise to thermal gradients within the battery cell. My research aims to gain a better understanding of these temperature gradients and contribute to more accurate temperature profiles by investigating local reversible heat effects in lithium ion batteries. Non-equilibrium thermodynamics allows us to measure local heat effects through the thermoelectric effect. This is found experimentally by measuring the response in electric potential of a symmetric cell with lithium ion battery materials exposed to a temperature gradient. These measurements also has the advantage of at the same time contributing to the study of thermoelectric cells.

Supervisors: Signe Kjelstrup/Odne Burheim

E-mail: astrid.f.gunnarshaug@ntnu.no

Eivind Bering

Department of Physics, NTNU

Polymeric fibres made of proteins and of polysaccharides represent important structural motifs in biological systems. In living organisms, fibres are usually assembled in bundles, inter-linked to form gels, or incorporated into bio-minerals, giving origin to a variety of tissues such as muscles, cartilage and bones. By developing and validating computational tools to predict mechanical properties of macroscopic samples, our project aims to characterize bio- and bio-inspired fibrous materials by their stress-strain relations and by their creep evolution. In essence, our simulation-based approach represents the virtual version of a mechanical testing lab, in which a load is applied to a sample according to a well defined protocol to measure the sample response up to the breaking point.

Supervisors: Alex Hansen/Astrid de Wijn.

E-mail: eivind.bering@ntnu.no

Louison Thorens

Department of Physics, University of Oslo

I come from the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, in France, and I will do a PhD in collaboration between PoreLab and the Laboratoire de Physique in Lyon. I will work on the effect of tunable interactions inside deformable porous media, and to do so I will firstly revisit the different pattern formation experiments in PoreLab (labyrinth, aerofracture, capillary bulldozing) by using beads with magnetic properties.

E-mail: louison.thorens@fys.uio.no

Hao Gao

Department of Civil and environmental Engineering, NTNU

This is a joint research project between the PoreLab center of excellence and the Geotechnical research group, NTNU. The area of my research is Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical modelling of soil behavior during freezing and thawing processes. My work aims to develop a discontinuous computational model for the physical and thermodynamic processes in water saturated porous media during freezing and thawing.

Supervisors: Gustav Grimstad/ Seyed Ali Ghoreishian Amiri/ Elena Scibilia

E-mail: hao.gao@ntnu.no

Michael Rauter

Department of Chemistry, NTNU

The aim of my research is to understand the role of thermal driving forces for fluid transport in porous media. So far, most of the two-phase flows in porous media have been investigated at isothermal conditions. The fluid transport in porous media due to a temperature gradient is therefore still posing unsolved practical as well as theoretical problems. The understanding of this phenomena may open up a possibility for further generalizations of the description of the two-phase flow and could also provide valuable information for practical applications like sea water desalination, fuel cells or oil and natural gas recovery. The problem will be investigated with molecular dynamics simulations of one or more immiscible fluids in a porous membrane.

E-mail: michael.t.rauter@ntnu.no

Davood Dadrasajirlou

Department of Civil and environmental Engineering, NTNU

Modeling the mechanical response of natural soft soils constitutes a challenge due to a series of factors that are not always included in conventional constitutive models. In fact, the main inherent features that influence the response are combination of fabric, inter-particle bonding, rate and void dependency. In addition, the behavior under small strain and small strain amplitude cycles is also highly non-linear. these features have separately, or in combination, been put into constitutive models, in some cases by using only mathematical techniques without physical insight, for simulating particular features of soft soils behavior. As a shortcoming of this method, it causes the outcome models ‘too flexible’ to possibly disobey the First and/or Second Law of Thermodynamics, as well as the difficulty in obtaining a unique set of material parameters, for engineering practice, when only limited test data is available. In this research, rigorous thermodynamic frameworks will be used to remediate this shortcoming and develop a full constitutive model.

Supervisors: Gustav Grimstad and Seyed Ali Amiri

E-mail: Davood.Dadrasajirlou@ntnu.no

Tom Vincent_Dospital

University of Strasbourg, France, in collaboration with the Department of Physics, UiO

My research focuses on the dynamics of fracture and friction. Both phenomena are notably at play in the failure of everyday objects and structures, but also (as I am a geophysicist by training) along the many seismic faults of the shallow earth crust. We notably pursue the idea that running cracks can be very hot, and that the temperature at their tip might reach thousands of degrees. Such an extreme energy concentration can lead to thermal avalanches in the rupture of solid body, explaining why a material that slowly creeps can suddenly snap dramatically. By the way, did you know that peeling your standard office tape can generate some fractoluminescence? That is, the rupture front in the glue emits some light. For a quick experiment, find yourself and your preferred roller tape a very dark place and peel as fast as you can !

Supervisors: Renaud Toussaint/Knut Jørgen Måløy

E-mail: vincentdospitalt@unistra.fr

Chuangxin Lyu

Department of Civil and environmental Engineering, NTNU

Frozen saline soil has aroused great attention and concern to both geotechnical and permafrost engineering regarding permafrost degradation, landslide, ground freezing and infrastructure stability. Geophysical and mechanical behaviors of frozen saline soils can be distinctive from well-studied frozen sand mainly because of significant unfrozen water content above the eutectic temperature. In my Ph.D., I tried to answer the problems regarding freezing process in saline porous media, the change of geophysical properties with freezing and pore water pressure development under different stress condition such as isotropic compression, shearing and repetitive loading. Several efforts have been made or planned to be made regarding the experimental and theoretical study. For example, I have done the laboratory joint geophysical testing to measure P-wave velocity, relative attenuation, apparent resistivity and induced-polarization as well as temperature. Besides, I have modified the triaxial setup of frozen soil in the geotechnique group, NTNU with the emphasis of pore water pressure measurement. We are also cooperating with ice mechanics group in NTNU and UNIS to set up the field footing test on permafrost in the one of NGTs geotechnique sites, Svalbard, which tries to observe the settlement of infrastructure because of creep and possibly consolidation.

Home page Link: https://www.ntnu.edu/employees/chuangxin.lyu

Supervisors: Gustav Grimstad and Seyed Ali Amiri

E-mail: chuangxin.lyu@ntnu.no