PMVLAB

Many fluids flow and interact with porous material. Some we extract from soil and rock formations like our drinking water, or our gas and oil. Some we insert to brine aquifers within rock formations as liquidize CO 2 or wastewater. As these fluids flow, they displace the resident fluid and interact with it chemically and physically, and sometimes, they can even deform and fracture the domain. These are the things we study!... We investigate injection-induced deformation of a unique rock-like medium mimicking the deformation of sandstone, yet under low pressure. We create this unique medium by sintering plastic particles at the size of sand grains. We incorporate and solidify about 1% fluorescent particles within the sample to track the local deformation. The tracking is achieved by saturating the sample with oil (immersion liquid) that has similar optical properties as the plastic particles, transforming the artificial rock from opaque to transparent, apart from the fluorescent..

Primary location: Haifa Israel