A Multi-Disciplinary Approach To Multi-Scale And Multi-Physics Processes In Shales And Soils

Organizers: Prof. Enrique Romero, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, and Prof. Guido Musso, Politecnico di Torino, and Prof. Cristina Jommi, Politecnico di Milano

The research interest in multi-scale and multi-physics processes is becoming wider in recent years, mainly within the context of energy geotechnics, geoenvironmental engineering and other geosciences disciplines. Shales and soils are usually involved in these new fields of application that require the understanding of the coupling between rock / soil deformation, fluid flow, heat and gas transfer, and chemical reactions, which must be examined at different scales of behaviour and over large time periods. A deeper understanding of these coupled processes, which is required to face new challenges, involves the adequate integration of multi-disciplinary approaches, such as geomechanics, geophysics, petrophysics and geochemistry, to mention but a few disciplines. These disciplines must be underpinned by robust laboratory experiments, field characterisation and lessons learnt from field campaigns, as well as computational modelling tools, to provide efficient means to explain these coupled processes at different scales.

This mini-symposium aims at attracting contributions that discuss these coupled and multi-scale processes on shales and soils from the perspective of different disciplines. This mini-symposium is also intended to be an exchange forum to bring together the expertise from both academia and industry for an effective knowledge exchange on these topics. Researchers coming from different disciplines and working on experimental (both at laboratory and field), theoretical and numerical aspects related to multi-physics couplings in shales and soils are encouraged to submit papers.