Dr. Mohammed Saad Al Kobaisi, Associate Professor of Petroleum Engineering, is sharing his expertise in advanced discretizations and has collaborated with other leading industry experts in the newly published book Advanced Modeling with the MATLAB Reservoir Simulation. Dr. Al Kobaisi authored Chapter 2 of the book titled “Nonlinear Finite-Volume Methods for the Flow Equation in Porous Media,” which succinctly explains the formulation of nonlinear finite-volume (NFV) methods as advanced discretization schemes.
“It was in 2019 when I first received the invitation from Chief Scientist Knut-Andreas Lie, of the SINTEF research center in Oslo, to contribute with a chapter in an upcoming book titled ‘Advanced Modeling with the MATLAB Reservoir Simulation Toolbox’. I was humbled to learn that our recent works in the area of advanced discretizations were gaining traction in the scientific computing community and being cited in prestigious research centers and universities’ publications (the likes of NASA Ames Research Center, Stanford University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, Communication University of China, among others). Although our developments were primarily targeting the oil and gas industry, the numerical tools we are working on at KU have applications in numerous industries and fields such as aerospace engineering, material sciences, environmental engineering, hydrology, CCUS, applied mathematics, and more,” Dr. Al Kobaisi shared.
The advanced discretization schemes Dr. Al Kobaisi talks about in his chapter are consistent and monotone by design. “We show the basic ideas of how to construct one-sided fluxes, interpolate using harmonic averaging points, and obtain unique discrete fluxes through grid faces with convex combinations of one- sided fluxes. Key functions in the accompanying nfvm module in the MATLAB Reservoir Simulation Toolbox (MRST) are outlined and examples of how the method is applied are presented,” he explained.
Dr. Mohamed Sassi, Professor & Acting Department Chair of the Petroleum Engineering Department commented: “Dr. Al Kobaisi’s contribution to the book and his work with other eminent scientists in the petroleum engineering world is a great achievement. This is testimony of the exceptional caliber of our faculty and the strength of our Petroleum Engineering program, which ranks 21st worldwide in the QS World University Rankings.”
Dr. Al Kobaisi has extensive experience in the industry, previously serving as Energy Affairs Manager of the Directorate of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) where he was in charge of the work on bilateral energy relations in oil, gas, and renewable energy. He was also Deputy Permanent Representative of the UAE Mission to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and an Advisor to the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MOCCAE) from 2017 to 2019.
The book Advanced Modeling with the MATLAB Reservoir Simulation is published by Cambridge University Press and electronic copies of the book can be downloaded for free from their website.
Ara Maj Cruz
Creative Writer
26 December 2021
