Hui-Hai Liu () is a

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

engineer and hydrogeologist. He specializes in fracture reservoir, coupled hydrological and mechanical processes, physics and properties of subsurface multiphase flow and transport, and their applications in

reservoir engineering Reservoir engineering is a branch of petroleum engineering that applies scientific principles to the fluid flow through a porous medium during the development and production of oil and gas reservoirs so as to obtain a high economic recovery. The ...

and

nuclear waste management Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. It is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, nuclear decommissioning, rare-earth mining, and nuclear ...

Biography

He received a 1983 B.S. in hydraulic machinery from Beijing Agricultural Engineering University, China, and a 1986 MS in fluid engineering from

Huazhong University of Science and Technology The Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST; ) is a public university in Wuhan, Hubei, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 985, Project 211, and the Double First-Cl ...

, China, with a thesis "An improved singularity method to describe water flow in hydraulic turbines." He then received a Ph.D. in the United States, with a degree in soil physics from

Auburn University Auburn University (AU or Auburn) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Auburn, Alabama, United States. With more than 26,800 undergraduate students, over 6,100 post-graduate students, and a tota ...

in 1995 for a thesis "An experimental and numerical study on fingering flow and mixing of variable density contaminants in porous media". He served as an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental System Engineering,

Clemson University Clemson University () is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university near Clemson, South Carolina, United States. - The blue-shaded pattern denotes university property. This shows Clemson University is ''out ...

from 1995 to 1997 and came to

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

in 1997 as research scientist at

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in the Berkeley Hills, hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Established i ...

(LBNL). He had served as head of the

Hydrogeology Hydrogeology (''hydro-'' meaning water, and ''-geology'' meaning the study of the Earth) is the area of geology that deals with the distribution and movement of groundwater in the soil and rock (geology), rocks of the Earth's crust (ge ...

and Reservoir Dynamics Department at LBNL from 2009 to 2012. Since 2014, he has been with

Aramco Saudi Aramco ( ') or Aramco (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is a majority state-owned petroleum and natural gas company that is the national oil company of Saudi Arabia. , it is the fourth- lar ...

Research Center.

Research

He has one research monograph and more than 100

peer-review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

ed articles/book chapters published, and made several major original contributions in his areas, including the development of (1) the active fracture model (AFM) that has been used as the base-case theory of flow and transport in unsaturated fractured rock by the

Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, as designated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act amendments of 1987, is a proposed deep geological repository storage facility within Yucca Mountain for spent nuclear fuel and other high-level radioact ...

Project, (2) the two-part Hooke's model (TPHM) by generalizing

Hooke's law In physics, Hooke's law is an empirical law which states that the force () needed to extend or compress a spring by some distance () scales linearly with respect to that distance—that is, where is a constant factor characteristic of ...

to incorporate mechanical heterogeneity of natural rocks, and (3) a new multiphase-flow theory based on the optimality principle that fingering multiphase flow in the subsurface is self-organized in such a way that total flow resistance is minimal.

Honors

He became a fellow of the

Geological Society of America The Geological Society of America (GSA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of the geosciences. History The society was founded in Ithaca, New York, in 1888 by Alexander Winchell, John J. Stevenson, Charles H. Hi ...

in 2007 and a distinguished member of

Society of Petroleum Engineers The Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit professional organization. SPE provides a worldwide forum for oil and natural gas exploration and production (E&P) professionals to exchange technical knowledge and best prac ...

in 2017. He is also a recipient of Emil Truog soil science award from

Soil Science Society of America The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), is the largest soil-specific society in the United States. It was formed in 1936 from the merger of the Soils Section of the American Society of Agronomy and the American Soil Survey Association. The So ...

and a Director's award for exceptional achievement from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Liu, Hui-Hai Living people Hydrogeologists 20th-century births Huazhong University of Science and Technology alumni Auburn University alumni Clemson University faculty Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory people Year of birth missing (living people) Fellows of the Geological Society of America