Reservoir Modeling & Recovery Department

The Reservoir Modeling & Recovery Department centers on the ability to quantitatively characterize fluid behavior in porous media. Students use multiphase-flow simulation to predict how oil, gas, and water move through a reservoir, practice inverting well-test and pressure-transient data to back out reservoir properties, and learn to combine material-balance calculations with uncertainty quantification to produce confidence bounds on recovery forecasts. Graduates can draw on this integrated analysis to predict reservoir performance and optimize recovery strategy.

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Well & Production Engineering Department Rock Mechanics & Geomechanics Department Geothermal Energy Engineering Department Hydrogen Energy & Storage Department Carbon Engineering Department Mining Engineering Department Nuclear Energy Engineering Department Reservoir Modeling & Recovery Department

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⭐ Darcy

Chair

💡 Fluid Flow in Porous Media & Reservoir Simulation

Researchers (real GeoVerse Lab members) 17

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1910–2001

Miles C. Leverett

Researcher

💡 Co-originator (with S.E. Buckley) of the Buckley-Leverett theory of immiscible fluid displacement in porous media (1942), the foundational frontal-advance theory taught in every reservoir engineering curriculum

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1914–1997

Kenneth Pitzer

Researcher

💡 Pitzer acentric factor and corresponding-states correlations (1955) underlying the cubic equations of state (Soave-Redlich-Kwong, Peng-Robinson) used in compositional reservoir simulation

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1926–2012

Joseph E. Warren

Researcher

💡 Co-originator (with P.J. Root) of the Warren-Root dual-porosity model of naturally fractured reservoirs (1963), the foundational idealization still used in all fractured-reservoir simulation

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1893–1974

Cornelius Lanczos

Researcher

💡 Lanczos algorithm (1950): an iterative method for tridiagonalizing large sparse matrices and solving eigenvalue/linear-system problems, foundational to modern sparse-matrix reservoir-simulator solvers

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1821–1896

Philipp Ludwig von Seidel

Researcher

💡 Co-originator of the Gauss-Seidel iterative method for solving systems of linear equations, the direct ancestor of the iterative linear solvers (Gauss-Seidel, SOR) used in every finite-difference reservoir simulator

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1857–1918

Aleksandr Lyapunov

Researcher

💡 Lyapunov stability theory (1892): the general mathematical theory of stability of the equilibria and trajectories of dynamical systems, underlying modern stability analysis of numerical time-stepping schemes

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1921–1984

Mahdi S. Hantush

Researcher

💡 Hantush-Jacob and Hantush leaky-aquifer analytical solutions to the well-flow partial differential equation, among the most widely used closed-form solutions in well hydraulics and reservoir/aquifer flow analysis

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1889–1967

Josef Kozeny

Researcher

💡 Kozeny equation (1927), later the Kozeny-Carman equation: theoretical relationship linking rock permeability to porosity, specific surface area, and pore-throat geometry

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1919–2004

Godfrey Hounsfield

Researcher

💡 Invented the computed tomography (CT) scanner (1972), the X-ray cross-sectional imaging technology whose micro-scale descendant (micro-CT) is the standard tool for 3D imaging of reservoir-rock pore structure in digital rock physics

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1864–1934

William Bate Hardy

Researcher

💡 Founding studies (with Ida Doubleday) of boundary lubrication and adsorbed molecular films at solid-liquid interfaces (1919-1922), and the Schulze-Hardy rule of colloid coagulation

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1876–1959

Max O. Lorenz

Researcher

💡 Lorenz curve (1905): a graphical measure of distributional inequality, later adapted by petroleum engineers into the flow-capacity/storage-capacity 'Lorenz coefficient' used to characterize reservoir permeability heterogeneity

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1926–2023

Ivo Babuška

Researcher

💡 Homogenization theory and the Babuska-Osborn theory of finite element methods for problems with highly heterogeneous coefficients, foundational to modern reservoir upscaling from fine-grid to coarse-grid permeability fields

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1900–1964

Ralph J. Schilthuis

Researcher

💡 Formulated the general reservoir material balance equation (1936), the sole method for determining drive mechanism and predicting oil/gas reservoir behavior until well into the 1950s

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1797–1886

Adhémar Jean Claude Barré de Saint-Venant

Researcher

💡 Saint-Venant equations (1871): the depth-averaged shallow-water/unsteady open-channel flow equations describing transient, time-dependent boundary flow

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1905–1996

William Hurst

Researcher

💡 Co-originator (with A.F. van Everdingen) of the Laplace-transform analytical theory of unsteady-state reservoir flow (1949), the direct mathematical foundation of well-test pressure-transient analysis

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1929–1997

Donald Marquardt

Researcher

💡 Co-developer of the Levenberg-Marquardt nonlinear least-squares optimization algorithm (1963), the standard algorithm underlying automated reservoir history-matching software

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1854–1941

Henry Selby Hele-Shaw

Researcher

💡 Invented the Hele-Shaw cell (1898): a narrow parallel-plate flow apparatus that experimentally visualizes streamlines of potential (Darcy-analogous) flow, the classical physical analogy underlying streamline reservoir simulation