CIE 540LEC - Geomechanics: Applications to Tunneling and Reservoir Engineering

This interdisciplinary course encompasses fields of rock mechanics, structural geology, and petroleum engineering to address a wide range of geotechnical problems with a focus on: 1) Tunneling; state-of-the-practice, analyses and design. 2) Geo-environmental impacts of injecting/extracting fluids into/from reservoirs, a common practice in oil & gas production, Aquifer Storage Recovery, geothermal, deep waste disposal. This integrated course is intended to introduce to students: basics of rock mechanics; the philosophy of formulation the physics behind excavation and coupled-processes; and advanced practical numerical modeling using FLAC3D, one of the most powerful software programs available to model buried structural elements in geological strata, and rigorous geomechanical problems.

Credits: 3

Requisites: Pre-requisite: Undergraduate course in soil mechanics.