GIL Receives ACS PRF New Doctoral Investigator Award
Conceptual illustration of deformation-coupled multiphase displacement in a pore throat.GIL has received a Doctoral New Investigator award from the ACS Petroleum Research Fund to investigate how deformation reshapes pore-scale multiphase flow and transport.
The project will integrate microfluidics experiments with Lattice Boltzmann simulations to study the coupled evolution of pore geometry, fluid interfaces, and capillary-driven displacement in deformable porous media.
A central focus is the Haines jump—a rapid interface-rearrangement event that occurs when a nonwetting fluid abruptly invades a pore body. By directly comparing controlled experiments with high-fidelity simulations, the research will examine how pore-wall deformation alters the onset and dynamics of Haines jumps, phase connectivity, fluid trapping, and transport.
This combined experimental and computational framework will advance the mechanistic understanding of multiphase flow in deformable porous materials relevant to subsurface energy and Earth systems.
Wencheng Jin
Assistant Professor of Petroleum Engineering
My research interests include novel rock breakage and fracture for subsurface resource recovery, data-driven and physics-based multiphysics modeling in porous and fractured media, and granular material flow characterization and modeling. My research supports energy and mineral recovery and storage, material handling, and geohazard prediction.