Zhangxing (John) Chen

Dr. Chen’s research areas include carbon capture and storage, cyclic steam stimulation, steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), expanding solvent SAGD, vapour extraction for heavy oil and bitumen reservoirs, hydraulic fracturing for shale, tight oil and gas, and coal bed methane. Through his research program, Dr. Chen will develop a state-of-the-art reservoir simulation toolkit to improve current modelling and simulation processes for enhanced oil recovery.

Industry focused challenges provide a crucial foundation for innovation. In collaboration with IRC industry partners and his research team, Dr. Chen has developed a powerful thermal reservoir simulator PARSIM. This is the first parallel thermal simulator worldwide to run full-field thermal simulations on thousands of CPUs simultaneously. It has been field tested with thousands of wells and billions of reservoir grid blocks with excellent scalability. Cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality/augmented reality visualization tools, and quantum computing are being incorporated into PARSIM to enhance traditional physics-based simulation techniques. This has resulted in optimized workflows, improved performance measures for large-scale reservoir simulations, and reduced time to perform vast simulations.

Within the next two years, Dr. Chen will have a fully functioning and commercialized simulation platform available for industry use. To achieve this goal, Dr. Chen will work with industry partners to develop a commercialization plan that incorporates a software licensing model to generate revenues. As well, Dr. Chen will collaborate with his network of energy producers to provide additional channels to support commercialization efforts. To ensure the platform is ready for commercialization, industry partners are conducting additional tests, validating results, and providing feedback to improve the platform’s technology.

Additionally, Dr. Chen will help launch a student-led start-up to work with industry to continue developing the PARSIM simulation platform. It’s expected this start-up will be a global leader in providing industry with a simulation platform encompassing fast parallel solvers for the solution of large-scale algebraic systems equations. Students involved with the start-up will gain valuable experience related to business development, commercialization processes, and access to industry expertise. 

While the development and commercialization of the PARSIM simulation platform will initially be used for reservoir simulations, it can also be applied to other industrial sectors such as: modelling and simulation for air pollution control, water quality management, carbon capture sequestrations (CCS), lithium extraction, and geothermal.

Funding from the Innovation Fellowship will be used to train and mentor a new PhD student to manage research and business objectives focused on commercializing the PARSIM simulation platform. Under Dr. Chen’s leadership, this student will have an opportunity to be part of the student-led start-up and will collaborate with industry partners to develop and improve the simulation software. As well, they will work closely with Dr. Chen’s research team and provide opportunities for team members to participate in commercializing research of a high-impact software product.

Internationally renowned in chemical and petroleum engineering research, Dr. Chen holds twenty-eight patented technologies related to petroleum recovery and reservoir simulation worldwide. An IP application for the PARSIM simulation platform is being developed and will include quantum algorithms, AI techniques, and virtual and augmented reality tools. Among numerous accolades, Dr. Chen is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the Engineering Institute of Canada, and has received the Killam Professor Award, NSERC’s Synergy Award for Innovation, Fields-CAIMS (Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society) Prize, and Alberta Science and Technology (ASTech) Outstanding Leader Award.