Publications associées à Physical characterization of fault rocks within the Opalinus Clay formation

A FEM modelling workflow to simulate THM effects in the rock around nuclear waste packages

High-level waste, stemming from nuclear electricity generation poses significant environmental and safety concerns. Currently, high-level wastes are stored in interim facilities needing constant monitoring and waiting for a definitive solution. Deep geolog ...

EPFL2024

Thermo-hydro-mechanical behaviour of the Callovo-Oxfordian claystone under thermal changes

Héloïse Manon Fuselier

Underground storage of radioactive waste is consensually recognised as the safest storage solution by European and worldwide countries relying mainly or partially on nuclear energy production. Over twenty years of research led by the French national agency ...

EPFL2024

Noise-induced transitions past the onset of a steady symmetry-breaking bifurcation: The case of the sudden expansion

François Gallaire, Edouard Boujo, Yves-Marie François Ducimetière

We consider fluid flows, governed by the Navier-Stokes equations, subject to a steady symmetry-breaking bifurcation and forced by a weak noise acting on a slow timescale. By generalizing the multiple-scale weakly nonlinear expansion technique employed in t ...

2024

Microbial hydrogen sinks in the sand-bentonite backfill material for the deep geological disposal of radioactive waste

Rizlan Bernier-Latmani, Manon Frutschi, Niels Burzan, Aislinn Ann Boylan, Nicolas Louis Maurice Jacquemin, Simiao Wang, Camille Aude Rolland

The activity of subsurface microorganisms can be harnessed for engineering projects. For instance, the Swiss radioactive waste repository design can take advantage of indigenous microorganisms to tackle the issue of a hydrogen gas (H2) phase pressure build ...

Frontiers Media SA2024

Evolution of water content and suction of Opalinus Clay from recovery at the drilling site to handling in the laboratory

Lyesse Laloui, Alessio Ferrari, Angelica Tuttolomondo

Advanced geotechnical engineering applications, such as shale gas extraction, CO2 geological sequestration, and geological radioactive waste storage, often involve various types of shales located at significant depths. Shales exhibit mechanical properties ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Water weakening and the compressive brittle strength of carbonates: Influence of fracture toughness and static friction

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, Barnaby Padraig Fryer, Corentin Jean-Marie Rémi Noël

Water is ubiquitous within the pore space of rocks and has been shown to affect their physical and mechanical behaviour. Indeed, water can act on the rock strength via mechanical (i.e., reducing the effective stresses) or chemical effects (e.g., mineral di ...

2024

Anomalous dissipation and other non-smooth phenomena in fluids

Massimo Sorella

The thesis is dedicated to the study of two main partial differential equations (PDEs) in fluid dynamics: the Navier-Stokes equations, which describe the motion of incompressible fluids, and the transport equation with divergence-free velocity fields, whic ...

EPFL2024

A fully-coupled highly-parallelized geomechanical simulator for assessing induced seismicity

Jean-François Molinari, Guillaume Anciaux, Nicolas Richart, Brice Tanguy Alphonse Lecampion, Emil Gallyamov

Induced seismicity caused by anthropogenic modification of the subsurface effective stress state has been observed in a number of industrial applications -- from hydrocarbon extraction (e.g., Groningen [1]), drilling waste-water disposal (e.g., [2]) to the ...

2023

Fluid flow through microcracked and fractured granitic reservoirs

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, Michael Heap, Lucille Jocelyne Nadine Carbillet

The permeability of crustal rocks and rock-masses dictates the efficiency of hydrothermal circulation and therefore the productivity of geothermal resources. In this study, we find by monitoring P-wave velocity that thermal microcracking in Lanhélin granit ...

2023

Reactivation of variably sealed joints and permeability enhancement in geothermal reservoir rocks

Michael Heap, Alexandra Roma Larisa Kushnir

Hydraulic stimulation of enhanced deep geothermal reservoirs commonly targets pre-existing joint networks with the goal of increasing reservoir permeability. Here, we study the permeability and strength of joint-free and jointed Buntsandstein sandstones fr ...

2023

Visualization and modelling of dynamic flow in fibrous preforms for liquid composite molding

Helena Luisa Teixido Pedarros

Nowadays, Liquid Composite Molding techniques are often used to manufacture high quality fiber reinforced composite parts at a relatively low cost. These involve an infiltration process, in which a liquid resin is forced to ingress into a dry fibrous porou ...

EPFL2023

Three-dimensional hydraulic fracture propagation in homogeneous and heterogeneous media

Carlo Peruzzo

Hydraulic fractures are tensile fractures that occur in solid materials due to the natural intrusion or anthropogenic injection of a viscous fluid into a fracture channel. The deliberate creation of hydraulic fractures is part of an industrial technology h ...

EPFL2023

Experimental and Numerical Investigation on Water Exchange of Opalinus Clay Samples

Alessio Ferrari, Qazim Llabjani, Eleni Stavropoulou, Vincenzo Sergio Vespo

Opalinus Clay is a fine-grained sedimentary geomaterial with a mineral composition consisting mainly of silicates, carbonates and quartz. Due to its favourable barrier properties, this geomaterial has been selected as the host rock for the underground disp ...

Wei Wu, Universität für Bodenkultur2023

System for automated and dynamic cell culture

Julia Tischler

The present relates to a system for automated cell culture, the system comprising an inflow module, a cell culture plate and an outflow module, said inflow module being in fluid connection with the outflow module via the cell culture plate, the inflow modu ...

2023

Three-dimensional fluid-driven frictional ruptures: theory and applications

Alexis Alejandro Sáez Uribe

Fluid-driven frictional ruptures are important in a broad range of subsurface engineering technologies and natural earthquake-related phenomena. Some examples of subsurface operations where borehole fluid injections can induce frictional slip are deep geot ...

EPFL2023

Numerical simulation of immiscible incompressible viscous, viscoelastic and elastic multiphase flows

Léo Aurélio Diserens

A unified numerical framework is presented for the modelling of multiphasic viscoelastic and elastic flows. The rheologies considered range from incompressible Newtonian or Oldroyd-B viscoelastic fluids to Neo-Hookean elastic solids. The model is formulate ...

EPFL2023

Highly Efficient Miniaturized Magnetorheological Valves Using Electropermanent Magnets

Christian Köchli, Yves Perriard, Adrien Jean-Michel Thabuis, Kenny Jeanmonod, Sofia Lydia Ntella, Bhawnath Tiwari

Fluidic systems enable actuation in various applications, such as automotive, medical, and industrial robotics. Miniaturized valves constitute a fundamental controlling element of modern fluidic systems, intriguing the interest of many researchers. This le ...

2023

Microfluidic device combining hydrodynamic and dielectrophoretic trapping for the controlled contact between single micro-sized objects and application to adhesion assays

Philippe Renaud, Arnaud Bertsch, Clémentine Sophie Sarah Lipp

The understanding of cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions via receptor and ligand binding relies on our ability to study the very first events of their contact. Of particular interest is the interaction between a T cell receptor and its cognate peptide-m ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2023

Hydro-Mechanical Characterization of a Shale by Unusually High-Pressure Oedometric Tests

Alessio Ferrari, Eleonora Crisci

The note presents selected results of an experimental campaign conducted with the aim to investigate the hydro-mechanical behaviour of a shale recovered at a depth of about 900 m below the ground. High-pressure oedometric tests were performed to investigat ...

Wei Wu, Universität für Bodenkultur2023

Unsupervised Electrofacies Clustering Based on Parameterization of Petrophysical Properties: A Dynamic Programming Approach

François Fleuret, Karthigan Sinnathamby

Electrofacies using well logs play a vital role in reservoir characterization. Often, they are sorted into clusters according to the self-similarity of input logs and do not capture the known underlying physical process. In this paper, we propose an unsupe ...

SOC PETROPHYSICISTS & WELL LOG ANALYSTS-SPWLA2023