Lucas Pereira receives the research prize of Ecole Polytechnique

Lucas Pereira has received the 2020 prize for the best research internship of Ecole Polytechnique (also known as X), France for his work performed at EPFL geo-Energy lab. Due to the Covid-19 situation, Lucas did his internship entirely remotely with weekly interactions via Zoom.

Lucas’s research work has clarified the effect of non-Newtonian fluids on the growth of hydraulic fracture. He has notably solved completely the problem of the growth of a plane-strain hydraulic fracture driven by a shear-thinning fluid. His work has shown the importance of accounting for both the low and large shear rates plateau of the rheology of shear-thinning to model hydraulic fracture growth. A journal paper is under preparation. Lucas has also investigated the growth of a radial hydraulic fracture driven by a visco-plastic fluid (like for example drilling mud) – providing a reference solution. This has notably allowed us to benchmark PyFrac, our open-source solver for planar 3D hydraulic fracture growth.

The Ecole Polytechnique research prize recognizes the outstanding contribution of Lucas over a short period in very unusual circumstances due to the corona crisis. Lucas is now looking forward to finally experience the EPFL campus, when the sanitary situation finally improves !