PI

Roman Y. Makhnenko is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Roman received his undergraduate degree in mechanics and applied mathematics at Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia, in 2007. He then obtained his MS (2009) and PhD (2013) degrees in geological and civil engineering from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. From 2013 to 2016, Dr. Makhnenko worked as a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland) on the project related to assessment of geological storage of CO2. Currently, Roman is developing a rock mechanics program at Illinois that includes modern high-pressure high-temperature rock testing facilities and new graduate and undergraduate courses on the topic.

 

Research interests:

  • Rock-fluid interaction: poroelasticity, poroviscoelasticity, plasticity, permeability, porosity waves
  • Fracturing of rock: size effect, process zone, hydraulic fracturing, failure criteria, induced seismicity
  • Geo-energy applications: CO2 and H2 storage, nuclear waste storage, gas shales, geothermal energy
  • Novel testing methods for geomaterials: optical, ultrasonic, X-ray CT, acoustic emission, DIC

 

Synergistic activities:

Committees:

  • ARMA Underground Storage and Utilization Technical Committee                                                      2021-
  • ISRM Commission on Coupled THMC Processes in Fractured Rock member                                     2020-
  • ASCE GI Rock mechanics Committee member                                                                                          2018-

Editing:

  • Guest editor of Geofluids special issue Geomechanics and Fluid Flow in Geothermal Systems      2019
  • Co-editor of ASCE GeoCongress Technical Publications                                                                          2020

Conference board member/session chair:

  • Co-chair of session Subsurface storage and sequestration at 56th ARMA Symposium                     2022
  • Chair of session Coupled processes in intact and fractured geologic media at AGU                         2021
  • Co-chair of session Coupled THMC processes in geological media at EGU                               2021, 2022
  • Co-chair of session Subsurface storage and sequestration at 55th ARMA Symposium                     2021
  • Advisory board member for 2nd International Conference on Energy Geotechnics                           2020
  • Organizing committee member for Int. Conf. on Coupled Proc. in Fractured Geol. Media    2020, 2022
  • Co-chair of session Integrated Rock Physics in the Engineered Subsurface at AGU                           2020
  • Chair of session Non-linear poromechanics in geoenergy applications at AGU                                  2020
  • Co-chair of GeoSystems session at Geo-Congress                                                                                    2020
  • Chair of session Multiphys. of geosystems: coupled THMC proc. in fract. porous media at AGU    2019
  • Co-chair of Micromechanics of granular materials session at EMI                                                         2018
  • Chair of Characterization of materials and properties session at Biot VI conference                         2017
  • Co-chair of Rock Properties for Underground Excavation session at 51st ARMA Symposium           2017
  • Co-chair of Subsurface Geology & Geo-Energy session at 14th Swiss Geoscience Meeting               2016