Section: Application Domains

Hydrogeology

This is joint work with Geosciences Rennes at OSUR, Pprime at University of Poitiers and CDCSP at University of Lyon. It is also done in the context of the group Momas and Andra grants.

Many environmental studies rely on modelling geo-chemical and hydrodynamic processes. Some issues concern water resources, aquifer contamination, underground waste disposal, clean-up of former waste deposits, acid mine drainage remediation. Other issues, also related to energy, concern geothermy, unconventional gas, enhanced oil recovery, underground storage of CO2, underground storage of nuclear waste.

Simulation of contaminant transport in groundwater is a highly complex problem, governed by coupled linear or nonlinear PDAEs. Moreover, due to the lack of experimental data, stochastic models are used for dealing with heterogeneity. The main objective of the team is to design and to implement efficient and robust numerical models, including Uncertainty Quantification methods.

Recent research showed that rock solid masses are in general fractured and that fluids can percolate through networks of inter-connected fractures. Fractured media are by nature very heterogeneous and multi-scale, so that homogenisation approaches are not relevant. The team develops a numerical model for fluid flow and contaminant transport in three-dimensional porous fractured media.

An important output is the parallel scientific platform H2OLab, running on clusters, grids and machines available in supercomputing centers.