Author Archives: François Bertrand

Workshop and Doctoral School announcement

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Dear ALERT community,

As sanitary conditions are improving, certainly thanks to the vaccination, we are confident that it will be possible to meet again in September 2021 in Aussois.

However, it cannot be ruled out that travel restrictions will still be in place at that time, particularly from outside the EU. The conditions for entering France will depend on your country of departure and your vaccination status (https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/coming-to-france/coronavirus-advice-for-foreign-nationals-in-france/#sommaire_1 ).

Therefore, for the first time in the history of ALERT, the decision was taken to organize the workshop and the doctoral school in hybrid mode in 2021. It means it will be possible to attend these events while being present in Aussois or remotely. This way, we hope to meet the expectations of both those eager to meet and those unwilling to travel.

In the coming weeks, you will be able to register and choosing one of these two options (which can be modified if necessary).

Keep staying safe, long life to ALERT-Geomaterials!

Website administration succession

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Dear ALERT community,

After twenty months, it is time for me to leave my role as website administrator of ALERT.  In collaboration with the Director of ALERT, Frédéric Collin, it was a great honor for me to be your privileged contact and to bring you almost daily announcements related to the geomaterials field. I am happy my last announcement means the ALERT community can meet again in Aussois in September 2021. Despite the particular period we went through, I noticed many events were organized in our field. All of you who were involved in these events should be congratulated for this!

In total, with the open position announcements, I scheduled nearly 250 posts. Actually, my only regret is not staying long enough to beat my predecessor, Albert Argilaga Claramunt, who did an incredible job.

I also thank Bertrand François (ALERT PhD Prize Winner 2009) who was nice enough to forward me your emails when some of you confused us 😀  For those of you who never noticed that we were two different people, I am sure you won’t see the difference in the future. As I leave, there will always be an office in our name in Liège…

I am now handing over to my colleague Arthur Fanara who, I am convinced, will do this job with dedication.

Thanks to everyone and long life to ALERT-Geomaterials!

François Bertrand

International Webinar on Rock Mechanics (1 July 2021)

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The sixth session of the International Webinar on Rock Mechanics will be held on Thursday, July 1 at 5:00 pm (Paris time) by videoconference (see attached invitation).
This series of webinars is a collaboration of the young members groups CFMR_jeunes (France), AGI (Italy), SEMR (Spain), CTES-YM CHILE, Ingeokring (Netherlands) and SPEG (Peru).

The upcoming session is organized by the CFMR_jeunes group and will contain two presentations:
– Feedback from some injections carried out in a mixed soft rock and soil formation – Aï-Na BLAISE (Tractebel).
– Experimental and numerical investigations on rock salt macroscopic behavior in the context of underground storage – Mejda AZABOU (Storengy).

Participation is free and should be confirmed via the following form:
https://lnkd.in/dwVQXne

We would be pleased to have you with us!

Joint PhD position at the CY Cergy Paris Université (France) and the University of Warwick (UK)

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PhD Studentship: REcycling of waste geomaterials and their application as primary
constituents for high-level CONstructions (RECON)

We are looking for an enthusiastic and highly motivated PhD student with proven interest and background in geomechanics and/or construction materials fields. This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a joint PhD research supported by the EUTOPIA PhD Cotutelle programme. The PhD study will be carried out at the CY Cergy Paris Université (CY) in France and the University of Warwick (UoW) in the UK. The doctoral student will spend half of the PhD in CY and half of the PhD in UoW.

More information in this attachment.

PhD position at Heriot-Watt University (UK)

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PHD PROJECT:  UNCERTAINTY QUANTIFICATION OF GEOMECHANICALLY SENSITIVE RESERVOIRS USING PHYSICS-INFUSED MACHINE LEARNING

What is the problem?

When we use the subsurface to store CO2 or Hydrogen, the rocks can deform inelastically as the reservoir conditions change – processes well described in geomechanics. But this permanent strain can lead to significant leakage and to induced seismicity risks during operation and/or long term storage. At worst, these risks pose a substantial threat to property and health – so much so that regulators and investors may halt projects before they start as we can’t correctly estimate the geomechanically-derived risks.

The key technical challenge for most storage reservoirs is to accurately quantify uncertainties and risks associated with geomechanical property changes from a few computer model forecasts. Geomechanical simulation software is complex and data-intensive, each run taking many hours to days. Such long run times make statistically thorough methods to quantifying uncertainty impractical. In most circumstances, we can’t afford the thousands of required model realisations. So such risks may be misestimated or even missed.

The longest model run times occur when we couple simulations of fluid flow (production and injection) with geomechanical simulations to predict how a development plan may alter the reservoir rocks properties and how this will impact fluid movement and field operations. To solve the system of equations for fluid flow and geomechanics together, we need to connect very different modelling approaches, the differences in the solvers typically precluding full coupling. Instead, the packages interact by running separately but simultaneously and passing data back and forth between iterations. This is a technically monumental challenge and the run times of the models are far longer than the combined times of each model run separately.

To accurately quantify uncertainties in geomechanically sensitive reservoirs we must run many more models than we do today, exploring a more diverse set of geological scenarios. But to run more models, we must significantly improve the efficiency of coupling fluid flow and geomechanical simulations. Machine learning provides one solution: once trained on an appropriate data set it can capture complex, non-linear systems very rapidly.

Continue reading →

Webinar series “Advances in Subsurface Mechanics for Energy and Environment” (ASMEE – 2021)

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The Center of Excellence on Subsurface Mechanics and Geo-Energy at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras is delighted to present a summer webinar series titled Advances in Subsurface Mechanics for Energy and Environment – 2021 (ASMEE – 2021). The webinar series will be held on Fridays in the months of July – September 2021.

The webinars will host leading researchers from academia and industry to discuss pioneering research in the broad area of subsurface mechanics. The choice of topics is diverse and is expected to include experimental and computational geomechanics, multiphase flow and reactive transport modeling, subsurface characterisation, geochemistry, and their applications in oil & gas and geothermal energy industries.

The talks are open to all; however, registration is mandatory. Details of each presentation will be sent one week prior to all registered participants. More information on upcoming webinars and registration can be found here: https://civil.iitm.ac.in/pcoe/smge/. 
For any clarifications, please contact the organizers at the following email: smge@civil.iitm.ac.in

Advanced course on Modeling of Localized Inelastic Deformation (Czech Republic)

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Advanced course on Modeling of Localized Inelastic Deformation (LID 2021),
taught by Milan Jirásek in Prague, Czech Republic, 6-10 September 2021.

This course provides an overview of modeling approaches used in the mechanics of inelastic materials and structures, with special attention to objective description of highly localized deformation modes such as cracks or shear bands. It is one of the RILEM educational courses. The course is intended for graduate students at the doctoral level, but it can be equally useful to motivated master students, post-doctoral researchers, or senior researchers who are not specialists in this field.

For details see http://mech.fsv.cvut.cz/~milan/course2021.html
For registration please contact Milan.Jirasek@fsv.cvut.cz .

OOFEM course in Prague, Czech Republic, 13-15 September 2021

Moreover, the Department of Mechanics, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, has prepared a training course for Ph.D. students, engineers interested in simulation and researchers who wish to quickly acquire the knowledge and practical skills necessary to employ OOFEM (an object-oriented open-source software package for solid mechanics, with extensions to fluid mechanics and transport problems). Participants will learn how to create, analyze and post-process models. Moreover, they will understand the OOFEM code structure and they will learn how to implement custom material models, elements, boundary conditions, or solvers.

The course takes place in Prague on 13-15 September 2021 and it will be delivered by a team of skilled OOFEM developers. No prior knowledge of OOFEM is required; however, a basic knowledge of C++ is highly recommended.For details see http://www.oofem.org/en/courses
Registration can be done by filling an online form.
Questions should be addressed to oofem@fsv.cvut.cz.

Computational Modelling for Future Research in Geoenvironmental Sciences webinar series

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The organising committee of the “Computational Modelling for Future Research in Geoenvironmental Sciences” (CMFRGS) webinar series invites you to its 1st webinar on “Discrete Element Method” presented by A/Prof Sergio Galindo Torres.

Webinar 1 is scheduled to be hosted at 9:00 am (CEST), 14th July 2021 with registration for this webinar closing at 24:00, 11th July 2021 (CEST).

You may find further info and register (free but mandatory) here: https://www.m2clab.com/cmfrgs-webinars

Attached flyer.

Dr Maziar Gholami Korzani on behalf of the organizing committee