Professor Andy Woods

Geothermal power; thermal batteries in the ground; aquifer thermal energy storage; hydrogen storage in aquifers; carbon storage ; mixing of potable reservoirs with bubble plumes; gravity currents; particle laden flows ; plastic dispersal in the ocean.

 

Research Area

I work in fluid mechanics of the environment, including ocean mixing and dispersion of plastics in the ocean, river dynamics, sediment transport and deposition, turbidity currents, glacier-fjord interactions, renewable energy systems including carbon storage in basalts and in sedimentary reservoirs/aquifers, hydrogen storage in aquifers, compress air storage in aquifers and salt caverns, bubble plume dynamics and mixing reservoirs.  Also geothermal power and heat storage in the ground are areas of great interest.

 

Project Interests

I am interested in exploring the above topics (questions 2 and 3) where there are many challenges for energy transition and large scale energy storage – especially geo-based thermal energy storage; hydrogen and carbon storage.  Understanding the long term operation of shallow geothermal systems, and their tole in energy transition, as well as modelling carbon dioxide dispersal in aquifers, such as the endurance field in the North Sea.  Understanding the transport of thermal energy in the subsurface associated with heating the ground coupled with aquifer transport of the heat and its impact on the shallow subsurface is a key problem, as well as  I am also interest in remediating environmental challenges associated with climate change – for example the lagoon at Ortobello in Italy where evaporation and increasing temperature of the lagoon water is causing algal blooms, and depleting the oxygen – modelling of the mixing of sea water into the lagoon is a major and important problem