Colloid Transport in Porous Media: A Review of Classical Mechanisms and Emerging Topics

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of InterPore, we present an interdisciplinary review of colloid transport through porous media. This review aims to explore both classical colloid transport and topics that fall outside that purview and thus offer transformative insights into the physics governing transport behavior. First, we discuss the unique colloid characteristics relative to molecules and larger particles. Then, the classical advection?dispersion?filtration models (both conceptual and mathematical) of colloid transport are introduced as well as anomalous transport behaviors. Next, the forces of interaction between colloids and porous media surfaces are discussed. Fourth, applications that are interested in maximizing the transport of colloids through porous media are considered. Then the concept of motile, active biocolloids is introduced, and finally, colloid swarming as a newly recognized mode of transport is summarized.Fil: Molnar, Ian L.. York University; CanadáFil: Pensini, Erica. School Of Engineering; CanadáFil: Asad, Md Abdullah. York University; CanadáFil: Mitchell, Chven A.. Department Of Physics And Astronomy; Estados UnidosFil: Nitsche, Ludwig C.. College Of Engineering; Estados UnidosFil: Pyrak-Nolte, Laura J.. Department Of Physics And Astronomy; Estados UnidosFil: Miño, Gastón Leonardo. Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos. Instituto de Investigación y Desarrollo en Bioingeniería y Bioinformática - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación y Desarrollo en Bioingeniería y Bioinformática; ArgentinaFil: Krol, Magdalena M.. York University; Canad

Laboratory earthquake forecasting. A machine learning competition

Earthquake prediction, the long-sought holy grail of earthquake science, continues to confound Earth scientists. Could we make advances by crowdsourcing, drawing from the vast knowledge and creativity of the machine learning (ML) community? We used Google’s ML competition platform, Kaggle, to engage the worldwide ML community with a competition to develop and improve data analysis approaches on a forecasting problem that uses laboratory earthquake data. The competitors were tasked with predicting the time remaining before the next earthquake of successive laboratory quake events, based on only a small portion of the laboratory seismic data. The more than 4,500 participating teams created and shared more than 400 computer programs in openly accessible notebooks. Complementing the now well-known features of seismic data that map to fault criticality in the laboratory, the winning teams employed unexpected strategies based on rescaling failure times as a fraction of the seismic cycle and comparing input distribution of training and testing data. In addition to yielding scientific insights into fault processes in the laboratory and their relation with the evolution of the statistical properties of the associated seismic data, the competition serves as a pedagogical tool for teaching ML in geophysics. The approach may provide a model for other competitions in geosciences or other domains of study to help engage the ML community on problems of significance

EMSL Pore Scale Modeling Challenge/Workshop

Report covers the background for the workshop, objectives, important research directions, necessary capabilities and overall recommendations

Analysis of fracture induced scattering of microseismic shear-waves

Fractures are pervasive features within the Earth’s crust and have a significant influence on the multi-physical response of the subsurface. The presence of coherent fracture sets often leads to observable seismic scattering enabling seismic techniques to remotely locate and characterise fracture systems. In this study, we confirm the general scale-dependence of seismic scattering and provide new results specific to shear-wave propagation. We do this by generating full waveform synthetics using finite-difference wave simulation within an isotropic background model containing explicit fractures. By considering a suite of fracture models having variable fracture density and fracture size, we examine the widening effect of wavelets due to scattering within a fractured medium by using several different approaches, such as root-mean-square envelope analysis, shear-wave polarisation distortion, differential attenuation analysis and peak frequency shifting. The analysis allows us to assess the scattering behavior of parametrised models in which the propagation direction is either normal or parallel to the fracture surfaces. The quantitative measures show strong observable deviations for fractures size on the order of or greater than the dominant seismic wavelength within the Mie and geometric scattering regime for both propagation normal and parallel to fracture strike. The results suggest that strong scattering is symptomatic of fractures having size on the same order of the probing seismic wave

Seismic focusing by a single planar fracture

[1] A single plane fracture with an axially symmetric stress distribution behaves as a seismic lens that focuses seismic energy to a beam waist\u27\u27 at a focal plane. Both phase and amplitude effects on a seismic wave propagating across the fracture contribute to the lensing behavior. Radial gradients in the fracture specific stiffness cause wave refraction through a radially varying group time delay, while the fracture transmission amplitude approximates a Fresnel zone plate. This work demonstrates that a two-dimensional planar fracture, contrasted with three-dimensional geologic structures such as basins and domes, can focus seismic waves. Focusing of seismic waves by fractures should be considered in the interpretation of seismic data from fractured strata with heterogeneous stress distributions

Large-format fabrication by two-photon polymerization in SU-8

Microporous structures are central to many fields of science and engineering, but many of these systems are complex with little or no symmetry and are difficult to fabricate. We applied two-photon polymerization (2PP) and femtosecond laser direct-writing techniques to fabricate broad-area large-format 3D microporous structures (450 mu m x 450 mu m x 40 mu m) in the epoxy-based photoresist SU-8. The appropriate exposure was determined by controlling average pulse energies and stage speeds to generate the exposure curves. Mechanical distortion exhibited in suspended walls fabricated by 2PP laser writing was studied by controlling wall lengths and widths. A simple thermal-expansion model is presented to explain the distortion caused by axial loadings of the walls

Hysteresis and interfacial energies in smooth-walled microfluidic channels

Hysteresis in the capillary pressure-saturation relationship (P-c-S-w) for a porous medium has contributions from the complex geometry of the pore network as well as the physical chemistry of the grain surfaces. To isolate the role of wettability on hysteresis, we fabricated microfluidic cells that contain a single wedge-shaped channel that simulates a single pore throat. Using confocal microscopy of the three-dimensional interfaces under imbibition and drainage, we demonstrate an accurate balance between mechanical work and surface free energy that was evaluated using measured advancing and receding contact angles. The closed-loop mechanical work per surface water molecule is 95 kJ/mol, which is consistent with physisorption. Therefore, the hysteresis in the P-c-S-w relationship for a single pore throat is defined by advancing and receding contact angles that are controlled by dissipative surface adsorption chemistry