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Yongfei Yang
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Advances and Future Directions in Flow Mechanics for Unconventional Hydrocarbon Reservoirs
The Research Center of Multiphase Flow in Porous Media, founded by Professor Jun Yao at China University of Petroleum (East China), has become a globally recognized hub for innovation in hydrocarbon flow mechanics. Since its early focus on well-test analysis in the 1990s, the center has systematically built a modern theoretical framework for multiphase flow in porous media, bridging multiscale pore structures, multimode transport, and coupled physics.
The efficient development of unconventional hydrocarbon resources—including shale, tight, fractured-vuggy, and deep to ultra-deep reservoirs—presents critical challenges due to extreme multiscale pore structures, diverse flow regimes, and coupled multiphysics processes. This presentation reviews major advances in the mechanics of flow in porous media tailored to unconventional reservoirs. Key scientific breakthroughs include: (1) microscale simulation of shale/tight oil and gas using multiscale, multimineral digital rocks and nanofluidic chips; (2) coupled flow models spanning nanopores, micro-fractures, and macro-fractures at the meter-scale fracture network, enabled by a generalized embedded discrete fracture model (gEDFM); (3) the first discrete fracture-vug network (DFVN) model integrating Darcy–Navier–Stokes coupling at the hundred-meter scale; and (4) intelligent optimization of three-dimensional stereo development using offline surrogate-assisted, variable-dimension evolutionary algorithms. Future trends are identified, including flow mechanics in deep/ultra-deep reservoirs (high temperature, high pressure, high stress), underground coal gasification in deep coal seams (thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical coupling), and intelligent flow mechanics leveraging deep learning and reduced-order modeling. These advances establish a new paradigm for multiscale, multiphysics, and multimode flow in unconventional reservoirs, supporting strategic energy security and efficient resource exploitation.
About Yongfei Yang
Yongfei Yang is a professor, managing director of international joint laboratory on petroleum energy at China University of Petroleum (East China). He is an active InterPore member, acting as secretary-general of China InterPore Chapter and boarding member of InterPore Foundation. He is the associate editor of Petroleum Science and editorial board member of the InterPore Journal, Geoenergy Science and Engineering, and Petroleum Exploration and Development. He was the Chair of InterPore 2024 Qingdao Local Committee.
His research interests include theory and applications of fluid flow in porous media, the applications of digital rock and pore network model technology in oil and gas field development, etc. He has published more than 200 journal papers with H index 50+. He has authorized 30+ Chinese patents and 4 American/Australia patents.
He teaches courses including Petrophysics, Fluid Flow in Porous Media, and Gas Reservoir Engineering etc. Yang holds a BASc, an MASc, and a PhD, all in petroleum engineering, from the China University of Petroleum (East China). During Sep. 2008 and Aug. 2009, he studied in Heriot-Watt University, Scotland UK as a visiting PhD student.
