02 Fakultät Bau- und Umweltingenieurwissenschaften
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://elib.uni-stuttgart.de/handle/11682/3
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Item Open Access Spatiotemporal distribution of precipitates and mineral phase transition during biomineralization affect porosity-permeability relationships(2022) Weinhardt, Felix; Deng, Jingxuan; Hommel, Johannes; Vahid Dastjerdi, Samaneh; Gerlach, Robin; Steeb, Holger; Class, HolgerEnzymatically induced calcium carbonate precipitation is a promising geotechnique with the potential, for example, to seal leakage pathways in the subsurface or to stabilize soils. Precipitation of calcium carbonate in a porous medium reduces the porosity and, consequently, the permeability. With pseudo-2D microfluidic experiments, including pressure monitoring and, for visualization, optical microscopy and X-ray computed tomography, pore-space alterations were reliably related to corresponding hydraulic responses. The study comprises six experiments with two different pore structures, a simple, quasi-1D structure, and a 2D structure. Using a continuous injection strategy with either constant or step-wise reduced flow rates, we identified key mechanisms that significantly influence the relationship between porosity and permeability. In the quasi-1D structure, the location of precipitates is more relevant to the hydraulic response (pressure gradients) than the overall porosity change. In the quasi-2D structure, this is different, because flow can bypass locally clogged regions, thus leading to steadier porosity-permeability relationships. Moreover, in quasi-2D systems, during continuous injection, preferential flow paths can evolve and remain open. Classical porosity-permeability power-law relationships with constant exponents cannot adequately describe this phenomenon. We furthermore observed coexistence and transformation of different polymorphs of calcium carbonate, namely amorphous calcium carbonate, vaterite, and calcite and discuss their influence on the observed development of preferential flow paths. This has so far not been accounted for in the state-of-the-art approaches for porosity–permeability relationships during calcium carbonate precipitation in porous media.Item Open Access The role of retardation, attachment and detachment processes during microbial coal-bed methane production after organic amendment(2020) Emmert, Simon; Davis, Katherine; Gerlach, Robin; Class, HolgerMicrobially enhanced coal-bed methane could allow for a more sustainable method of harvesting methane from un-mineable coaldbeds. The model presented here is based on a previously validated batch model; however, this model system is based on upflow reactor columns compared to previous experiments and now includes flow, transport and reactions of amendment as well as intermediate products. The model implements filtration and retardation effects, biofilm decay, and attachment and detachment processes of microbial cells due to shear stress. The model provides additional insights into processes that cannot be easily observed in experiments. This study improves the understanding of complex and strongly interacting processes involved in microbially enhanced coal-bed methane production and provides a powerful tool able to model the entire process of enhancing methane production and transport during microbial stimulation.Item Open Access Comparing different coupling and modeling strategies in hydromechanical models for slope stability assessment(2024) Moradi, Shirin; Huisman, Johan Alexander; Vereecken, Harry; Class, HolgerThe dynamic interaction between subsurface flow and soil mechanics is often simplified in the stability assessment of variably saturated landslide-prone hillslopes. The aim of this study is to analyze the impact of conventional simplifications in coupling and modeling strategies on stability assessment of such hillslopes in response to precipitation using the local factor of safety (LFS) concept. More specifically, it investigates (1) the impact of neglecting poroelasticity, (2) transitioning from full coupling between hydrological and mechanical models to sequential coupling, and (3) reducing the two-phase flow system to a one-phase flow system (Richards’ equation). Two rainfall scenarios, with the same total amount of rainfall but two different relatively high (4 mm h-1) and low (1 mm h-1) intensities are considered. The simulation results of the simplified approaches are compared to a comprehensive, fully coupled poroelastic hydromechanical model with a two-phase flow system. It was found that the most significant difference from the comprehensive model occurs in areas experiencing the most transient changes due to rainfall infiltration in all three simplified models. Among these simplifications, the transformation of the two-phase flow system to a one-phase flow system showed the most pronounced impact on the simulated local factor of safety (LFS), with a maximum increase of +21.5% observed at the end of the high-intensity rainfall event. Conversely, using a rigid soil without poroelasticity or employing a sequential coupling approach with no iteration between hydromechanical parameters has a relatively minor effect on the simulated LFS, resulting in maximum increases of +2.0% and +1.9%, respectively. In summary, all three simplified models yield LFS results that are reasonably consistent with the comprehensive poroelastic fully coupled model with two-phase flow, but simulations are more computationally efficient when utilizing a rigid porous media and one-phase flow based on Richards’ equation.Item Open Access Theorie und numerische Modellierung nichtisothermer Mehrphasenprozesse in NAPL-kontaminierten porösen Medien(2001) Class, Holger; Helmig, Rainer (Prof. Dr.)In dieser Arbeit werden die physikalischen Fragestellungen als auch die mathematisch-numerische Modellbildung der nichtisothermen Mehrphasen- und Mehrkomponentenprozesse in porösen Medien aufbereitet.Item Open Access A numerical model for enzymatically induced calcium carbonate precipitation(2020) Hommel, Johannes; Akyel, Arda; Frieling, Zachary; Phillips, Adrienne J.; Gerlach, Robin; Cunningham, Alfred B.; Class, HolgerEnzymatically induced calcium carbonate precipitation (EICP) is an emerging engineered mineralization method similar to others such as microbially induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP). EICP is advantageous compared to MICP as the enzyme is still active at conditions where microbes, e.g., Sporosarcina pasteurii, commonly used for MICP, cannot grow. Especially, EICP expands the applicability of ureolysis-induced calcium carbonate mineral precipitation to higher temperatures, enabling its use in leakage mitigation deeper in the subsurface than previously thought to be possible with MICP. A new conceptual and numerical model for EICP is presented. The model was calibrated and validated using quasi-1D column experiments designed to provide the necessary data for model calibration and can now be used to assess the potential of EICP applications for leakage mitigation and other subsurface modifications.Item Open Access Models for non-isothermal compositional gas-liquid flow and transport in porous media(2007) Class, Holger; Helmig, Rainer (Prof.)Multiphase flow processes in porous media occur in many different fields of applications. One may basically distinguish between natural and technical porous media. A classical porous medium is the natural subsurface while there is still a number of technical porous media where flow and transport plays an important role and for which some basic model concepts developed for subsurface problems can be applied or at least adapted. One such technical porous medium is, for example, the gas diffusion layer of a fuel cell where the porous layer has the purpose of controlling the gas transport from the gas discharge channel to the reaction layer and concurrently the displacement of liquid water that is produced by the reaction. Major subsurface applications treated in this work are contaminant spreading in the saturated and unsaturated zone, thermally enhanced in-situ remediation methods, and the large topic of carbon dioxide storage in deep geologic formations. The latter got recently much attention in the discussions how to mitigate greenhouse gas concentrations and global warming. This work deals in particular with the numerical modeling of gas-liquid flow in porous media, thereby considering non-isothermal and compositional effects. The basic characteristics of the processes and different applications are explained and discussed. The fundamental concepts for the physical and mathematical models are introduced including their specific adaption to certain problems and a brief discussion of numerical solution algorithms. A large chapter presents example applications that illustrate the basic processes and phenomena by simulation results.Item Open Access Machine learning assists in increasing the time resolution of X-ray computed tomography applied to mineral precipitation in porous media(2023) Lee, Dongwon; Weinhardt, Felix; Hommel, Johannes; Piotrowski, Joseph; Class, Holger; Steeb, HolgerMany subsurface engineering technologies or natural processes cause porous medium properties, such as porosity or permeability, to evolve in time. Studying and understanding such processes on the pore scale is strongly aided by visualizing the details of geometric and morphological changes in the pores. For realistic 3D porous media, X-Ray Computed Tomography (XRCT) is the method of choice for visualization. However, the necessary high spatial resolution requires either access to limited high-energy synchrotron facilities or data acquisition times which are considerably longer (e.g. hours) than the time scales of the processes causing the pore geometry change (e.g. minutes). Thus, so far, conventional benchtop XRCT technologies are often too slow to allow for studying dynamic processes. Interrupting experiments for performing XRCT scans is also in many instances no viable approach. We propose a novel workflow for investigating dynamic precipitation processes in porous media systems in 3D using a conventional XRCT technology. Our workflow is based on limiting the data acquisition time by reducing the number of projections and enhancing the lower-quality reconstructed images using machine-learning algorithms trained on images reconstructed from high-quality initial- and final-stage scans. We apply the proposed workflow to induced carbonate precipitation within a porous-media sample of sintered glass-beads. So we were able to increase the temporal resolution sufficiently to study the temporal evolution of the precipitate accumulation using an available benchtop XRCT device.Item Open Access The FluidFlower validation benchmark study for the storage of CO2(2023) Flemisch, Bernd; Nordbotten, Jan M.; Fernø, Martin; Juanes, Ruben; Both, Jakub W.; Class, Holger; Delshad, Mojdeh; Doster, Florian; Ennis-King, Jonathan; Franc, Jacques; Geiger, Sebastian; Gläser, Dennis; Green, Christopher; Gunning, James; Hajibeygi, Hadi; Jackson, Samuel J.; Jammoul, Mohamad; Karra, Satish; Li, Jiawei; Matthäi, Stephan K.; Miller, Terry; Shao, Qi; Spurin, Catherine; Stauffer, Philip; Tchelepi, Hamdi; Tian, Xiaoming; Viswanathan, Hari; Voskov, Denis; Wang, Yuhang; Wapperom, Michiel; Wheeler, Mary F.; Wilkins, Andrew; Youssef, AbdAllah A.; Zhang, ZiliangSuccessful deployment of geological carbon storage (GCS) requires an extensive use of reservoir simulators for screening, ranking and optimization of storage sites. However, the time scales of GCS are such that no sufficient long-term data is available yet to validate the simulators against. As a consequence, there is currently no solid basis for assessing the quality with which the dynamics of large-scale GCS operations can be forecasted. To meet this knowledge gap, we have conducted a major GCS validation benchmark study. To achieve reasonable time scales, a laboratory-size geological storage formation was constructed (the “FluidFlower”), forming the basis for both the experimental and computational work. A validation experiment consisting of repeated GCS operations was conducted in the FluidFlower, providing what we define as the true physical dynamics for this system. Nine different research groups from around the world provided forecasts, both individually and collaboratively, based on a detailed physical and petrophysical characterization of the FluidFlower sands. The major contribution of this paper is a report and discussion of the results of the validation benchmark study, complemented by a description of the benchmarking process and the participating computational models. The forecasts from the participating groups are compared to each other and to the experimental data by means of various indicative qualitative and quantitative measures. By this, we provide a detailed assessment of the capabilities of reservoir simulators and their users to capture both the injection and post-injection dynamics of the GCS operations.