Adsorption-Controlled Gas Transport in Shales: This research investigates the mass transport of high-pressure fluids in organic-rich nanoporous media, such as shales and coal, by considering the physics of fluid storage and transport. Rigorous yet straightforward approaches are developed for analyzing and understanding the complex transport and sorption behaviors of high-pressure gas in shales through theoretical analysis and mathematical modeling.

Alkali-Surfactant Polymer (ASP) Flooding: This research reveals that the prediction of microemulsion phase behavior for all Winsor types is possible using the HLD-NAC EoS. The research has further shown that optimum is determined by a planar surface of salinity, EACN, temperature, and pressure, breaking new ground in understanding how optimum varies as all of these properties change. This research will obtain new experimental data to understand various issues, such as how to lump components into three pseudocomponents in the proper way, and how to model phase behavior when there are several other components like cations, surfactants, and alcohols. Further, we will include the chemical reactions required to model soap generation using alkali, and how this impacts the phase behavior.

Carbon Sequestration Laboratory Quantifications: This research aims at the investigation of multicomponent gas injection in subsurface reservoirs for carbon sequestration flow behavior evaluations. The formation permeability, matrix deformation, and pore evolution will be dynamically evaluated under in situ CO₂ injections. Binary gas flow modeling is conducted for the CO₂ injection planning towards the maximized injectivity and enhanced virgin gas recovery.

Coal Mine Disaster Prevention and Control: This research focuses on innovative and field-oriented new technologies for mining disaster prevention and control to mitigate and eliminate mining health and safety hazards. The research domains include effective coal mine gas drainage, coal/rock bursts prevention, mine water hazard mitigation, dust prevention, ventilation design and thermal hazard elimination, as well as mining stress control.

Cyclic Solvent Injection in Shale Oil Reservoirs: This research is based on a paradigm shift in modeling two partially miscible, multicomponent fluids in nanoporous media – one that does not rely on conventional bulk fluid transport frameworks but on species movement. The essential transport mechanisms for cyclic solvent injection in ultratight oil reservoirs are investigated using a newly developed numerical model for species transport of partially miscible, non-ideal fluid mixtures using the chemical potential gradient as the driving force.

Flowback RTA of Multi-Fractured Horizontal Wells: This research aims at the development of mathematical models to simulate the two-phase liquid transport in hydraulically fractured shale reservoirs and to characterize hydraulic fracture attributes and dynamics using flowback data. The developed Flowback RTA models provide a quantitative understanding of HF properties right after HF operations.

Formation Permeability Damage Evaluation: This research aims at the evaluation of formation permeability damage due to fracturing fluid injection. Furthermore, it investigates the time-dependent permeability variation with formation depletion. The long-term permeability evolution under uniaxial stress, hydrostatic, and constant volume boundary conditions are evaluated. For the given formation, the analytical and numerical models will be provided for the permeability prediction under the reservoir temperature and pressure conditions.

Gas Lift for Unconventional Oil Wells: This research aims to develop data- and physics-based machine learning models for predicting the bottomhole pressure of unconventional oil wells during gas lift and evaluating the performance of artificially lifted wells. Unlike the machine learning models that rely on experimental or synthetic simulation data, actual fluid and reservoir data from shale oil wells and gauge pressure data under gas-lift operation are considered.

Geomechanical Measurement and Modeling of Formation Depletion: This research focuses on stress path quantification with continuous depletion, effective stress evaluation for sorptive reservoir rocks, and failure behavior measurement with depletion. The finite element numerical model (COMSOL) is utilized for stress prediction and stress path profiling. A finite volume model (FLAC3D) is also used for reservoir failure and formation damage evaluations. An integrated laboratory measurement and numerical modeling approach is used for reservoir geomechanical modeling.

Hydrogen Storage in Coal and Shale Formations: Experimental protocols are developed to quantify the hydrogen sorption and diffusion in coal and shale toward the hydrogen storage in these formations. The sorption capacity and diffusivity of hydrogen can be quantified at reservoir pressure and temperature.

New Generation Compositional Simulation: A new type of compositional simulation is needed in order for compositional simulation to be more widely used. Currently, there are discontinuities in saturation, relative permeability, grid-block to grid-block flux calculations and others because phases are labeled as oil and gas. In this research, we will eliminate all such phase behavior labels from the ground up to lay the framework for this new-generation simulator. The new simulator should be much faster computational and provide more physical recovery estimates. The long-term plans for this simulator are to solve black oil and EOR processes (including ASP) using one framework.

Relative Permeability Modeling: A state function approach to relative permeability modeling is proposed that allows for relative permeability to change continuously and uniquely as a function of phase saturation, phase connectivity, interphase area, contact angle, rock quality index, and capillary number. It is shown that hysteresis can be modeled well this way and avoid the common discontinuities that occur in reservoir simulation. Using pore network modeling and experimental data, this research will examine the relationships that allow for fitting and prediction of relative permeability utilizing this approach.