International Business Machines Corporation

Peter William Bryant

Ronaldo Giro

Rodrigo Neumann Barros Ferreira

Jaione Tirapu Azpiroz

Ricardo Luis Ohta

Mathias B Steiner

Rodrigo N B Ferreira

Bruno D C Flach

William Fernando Lopez Candela

Michael Engel

Alexandre Ashade Lassance Cunha

A system for manipulating electric fields within a microscopic fluid channel includes a fluid channel with an inlet and an outlet to support fluid flow, at least one controllable electric field producer that applies a non-uniform and adjustable electric field to one or more regions of the fluid channel, one or more sensors that measure one or more parameters of a fluid flowing through the fluid channel, and a controller with hardware and software components that receives signals from the one or more sensors representative of values of the one or more parameters and, based on the parameter values, drives one or more actuators to adjust the electric field produced by the plurality of electric field producers. A complex fluid including at least two components flows through the fluid channel, where at least one of the at least two components comprises particles controllable by the non-uniform and adjustable electric field.

Self-tuning system for manipulating complex fluids using electrokinectics

An apparatus to perform tests on fluid flow and configured to operate at field conditions includes one or more vessels and one or more sets of fluid injecting devices corresponding to respective ones of the one or more vessels. Each set of fluid injecting devices includes one or more fluid injecting devices each configured to inject a respective fluid through its respective vessel. The apparatus further includes one or more measurement devices operatively coupled to respective ones of the one or more vessels and configured to measure data associated with fluid flow of the one or more fluids injected into its respective vessel. The measured data comprises one or more of pressure gradient data and flow rate data. The apparatus is in communication with at least one processor configured to calculate a model based on the measured data. In calculating the model, the at least one processor is configured to infer one or more parameters for the model from the measured data.

Characterizing fluid flow at field conditions

A microfluidic device, including a controllable shape-changing micropillar where a shape of the shape-changing micropillar is changed by a fluid.

Reconfigurable microfluidic device and method of manufacturing the same

A machine learning process is performed using one or more sources of information for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) materials to be used for an EOR process on a defined oil reservoir. Performance of the machine learning process produces an output comprising an indication of one or more EOR materials and their corresponding concentrations to be used in the EOR process. The indication of the one or more EOR materials and their corresponding concentrations is output to be used in the EOR process. Methods, apparatus, and computer program products are disclosed.

Cognitive screening of EOR additives

A method is provided including receiving data corresponding to a three-dimensional physical representation of a porous rock sample; calculating a low-dimensional representation of a pore network in the porous rock sample based on the three-dimensional physical representation; extracting one or more geometrical parameter from the low-dimension representation; generating a capillary network model of the porous rock sample based at least on the at least one geometrical parameter for simulating fluid flow inside the porous rock sample; and performing at least one simulation of a flow of the fluid through the capillary network model of the porous rock sample with a fluid additive to provide a predicted enhanced fluid recovery efficiency.

Capillary network simulations based on a low-dimensional representation of porous media

A method is provided including calculating a first property vector indicative of physical properties derived from a digital image of a first rock sample; determining a set of one or more similar rock samples by calculating a value indicating a similarity between the first rock sample and second rock samples based on the first property vector and second property vectors associated with the second rock samples; selecting a list of fluid additives based on existing enhanced fluid recovery efficiency values associated with the similar rock samples; performing, for each of the fluid additives, a simulation of a flow of fluid through a digital model of the first rock to determine a simulated enhanced fluid recovery efficiency value for the respective fluid additives; and outputting an optimal fluid additive for the first rock sample based at least in part on the calculated similarity values and simulated enhanced fluid recovery efficiency values.

Cognitive enhanced oil recovery advisor system based on digital rock simulator

A microfluidic device, including a matrix array of controllable shape-changing micropillars where a shape of the shape-changing micropillars is changed by a fluid.

Methods and systems for fabricating micro-fluidic devices include determining a target cost function value based device design parameters. The performance of one or more chosen design candidates is simulated in a selected simulation model. A design candidate is identified with a cost function value closest to the target cost function value as a best initial design candidate. Design parameters of the best initial design candidate are iteratively modified to provide a modified design candidate having design parameters differing from the design parameters of the best initial design candidate, a cost function value is iteratively calculated for the modified initial design candidate, and optimized device design parameters are iteratively derived from a modified design candidate, until a computed cost function value for the modified design candidate meets the determined target cost function value. An optimized micro-fluidic device is fabricated using the modified design candidate and the optimized device design parameters.

Method for optimizing the design of micro-fluidic devices

A microfluidic device, including a substrate including a microchannel, an activation setup disposed in the microchannel, and a matrix array of controllable shape-changing micropillars connected to the activation setup. A shape of the controllable shape-changing micropillars changes based on an activation of the activation setup.

Described herein is a method of designing micro-fluidic devices. A target cost function based on device design parameters is chosen. The performance of one or more design candidates is run in a simulation model. A design candidate with a cost function closest to the target cost function is chosen and modified in an optimization routine to provide a modified design candidate having modified device design parameters. The cost function for the modified initial design candidate is computed, and when the modified design candidate has a computed cost function that meets the target cost function, optimized device design parameters of an optimized device design are obtained. Additional optimization iterations may be performed as needed to arrive at an optimized device design. A micro-fluidic device based on the optimized device design is manufactured.

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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Peter William Bryant