Events

Speaker: Dr. Muhammad Sahimi, N.I.O.C. Chair in Petroleum Engineering and Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California

Title of Seminar: “Multiresolution Wavelet Transformation: A Powerful Tool for Characterization and Modeling of Large-Scale Porous Media”

Abstract: Characterization and modeling of porous media constitute a set of difficult problems that are of fundamental importance. In particular, large-scale porous media, such as soil, groundwater aquifers, oil, gas, and geothermal reservoirs are highly complex systems with spatial heterogeneities and long-range correlations over several distinct and disparate length scales. We describe a unified approach to all aspects of the problem, from analyzing the available data and characterizing the correlations and cross-correlations between various types of data and zones in the porous formations, to modeling of fluid flow and transport processes in them, and upscaling them to reservoir scale. The approach is based on wavelet transformations, a powerful, multiscale and multiresolution family of transformations that have found wide applications in engineering and science.

Biography: Muhammad Sahimi received his B.S. degree from the University of Tehran, Iran, and his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1984, both in chemical engineering. He has been a faculty member at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles since 1984, where he is currently professor of chemical engineering & materials science, and the NIOC Chair in petroleum engineering, and where he was Chairman of his Department from 1999-2005. Part of his research interests has been focused on modeling of porous media, and fluid flow, transport, reaction, and adsorption in such media. He has published over 350 papers and 4 books, and has received several awards, including those from Humboldt Foundation, the American Physical Society and International Society for Porous Media.