CEE Seminar: Machine Learning and Neural Networks for Porous Media and Materials - From Fluid Flow, Transport and Deformation to Learning the Governing Equations for Datasets

Abstract: Deep within the history of mankind, as well as science, every transformative era has been driven by new ways of thinking. Our era is no exception and is marked by the arrival of artificial intelligence (AI), not merely as a new tool, but as our partner in discovery. With algorithms that AI learns from data, we are beginning to discover patterns that were once hidden in noise. No laboratory, observatory or workshop can remain untouched by such emerging capabilities that AI, particularly machine learning (ML) is offering. While the hype can indeed be loud, the quiet revolution that is happening is in the details of careful ML models and computer experiments that discover patterns in datasets. One class of problems to which AI and ML have been applied involves porous media and materials, ranging from catalysts, membranes and adsorbents to groundwater aquifers, and oil and gas reservoirs. Recent applications of ML, particularly neural networks, to porous media and materials are described, including predicting their important flow, transport and deformation properties and their links to the morphology of the pore space, as well as addressing a largely unsolved and highly important problem: how can one discover the governing equation(s) for a set of data for a phenomenon in porous media?

Bio: Muhammad Sahimi received his B.S. from the University of Tehran, Iran, in 1977, and his Ph.D. from the University Minnesota in 1984, both in chemical engineering. He joined the University of Southern California immediately after receiving his Ph.D., and has been there ever since where he was the chair of the department from 1999-2005. He has published over 450 papers and six books, and has received numerous awards including, among others, the Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship Award, and the Lifetime Achievement Award and Kimberley-Clark Distinguished Lectureship Award, both from the International Society for Porous Media. He is also a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.