Prof. Chin-Fu Tsang

Biography

Chin-Fu Tsang received his B.Sc. first class honour degree in Physics in 1964 from the University of Manchester in UK and his PhD in 1969 from the University of California Berkeley in US. He spent his entire research career with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, retiring in 2005 as Senior Scientist Emeritus in the Earth Sciences Division. Since retirement, he has continued his research first as a visiting professor of hydrogeology at Imperial College London in UK and then as a visiting professor and visiting scholar at Uppsala University in Sweden. He was also the founding chairman of the DECOVALEX project, serving as its chairman from 1992 to 2007.

Introduction of the Lecture

Reminiscences from 50 Years of Research in Coupled Processes in Geologic Systems 

Research into coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical (THMC) processes in geologic systems came into focus in the early 1980’s because of the special requirements for the safety assessment of nuclear waste repositories. However, two-way and three-way couplings among T, H, M, C processes have been studied intensively in other geologic research projects as well. I had the privilege of taking up coupled processes research through the encouragement of Paul Witherspoon and Neville Cook 50 years ago. Over the years, my research has been much enriched by close cooperation with Ove Stephansson, Ghislain de Marsily, Ivars Neretnieks, John Hudson, Jahan Noorishad, John Apps and many other outstanding colleagues. Furthermore, I had the good fortune of working with a number of supportive program managers from some major research funding agencies.

This talk will present some reminiscences and highlights of my interactions with these coworkers and friends and my research in geothermal reservoir dynamics, aquifer thermal energy storage, borehole fluid electric conductivity logging, deep injection disposal of liquid wastes, flow channeling in fractured rock, and coupled THMC processes in fracture rocks and excavation damaged zones.