The University of Edinburgh is seeking an excellent student to award a prestigious PhD scholarship to investigate the behaviour of methane gas inside porous rock media. The student will be using molecular dynamics simulations and develop new multiscale models to predict unconventional gas flows in underground reservoirs. This is part of a $2.8M joint research project between Edinburgh University, Strathclyde University, and King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM).

 

This scholarship is to work with Dr Matthew Borg in his research team in the School of Engineering, which in REF2014 came first in the UK for “research power”, with 94% of our research rated as ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’. The University of Edinburgh is one of the world’s top 25 universities.

 

The start date is October 2019 (or another date, by arrangement), and is for 3.5 years. As this is a joint project with KFUPM, there will be some visits to Saudi Arabia for knowledge exchange and research interactions, with research staff and engineers from industry.

 

The principal objectives of this PhD research project are as follows:

 

• to use molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the interactions of natural gas with the inner surfaces of geological gas reservoirs down to the nanoscale;

• to use these molecular results to develop boundary conditions that are suitable for a hybrid multiscale technique for simulating the flow of gas in real porous rock samples. This problem is directly relevant to reservoir simulations for the oil and gas industry.

More information can be found here: 

http://www.tiny.cc/m0tjaz 

 

Apply here: https://www.eng.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/research/phd/multiscale-modelling-shale-gas-flows

 

Deadline: 30th September 2019