Joe Wang

Intiatives and Recent Efforts

• Supervise (as responsible manager/lead) the completion of 21 Analysis and Model reports on UZ flow, transport and coupled processes, as the technical basis for the licensing application of the geological repository at Yucca Mountain.
  
• Conduct (as principle investigator and lead author) periodic updates of the Analysis Report “In situ Field Testing of Processes”, with multiple data sets collected for calibration and validation of UZ drift-scale and site-scale models, revisions in 2000, 2001, 2003, and 2004 (planned).
  
• Participate in the formulation and organization of workshops (NRC and SC-OCRWM in Summer 2004) of the DOE initiative SECUREarth¹ with interdisciplinary approaches for addressing heterogeneity, scaling, coupling, and uncertainty analyses common to many earth science problems².
  
• Support management of OCRWM OSTI³-LBNL program as lead in the natural barrier trust area for both UZ and saturated zone research by academia and national labs, assigned April 2004.
  
• Participate in the committee on technical evaluation of underground laboratory sites, and organization of Underground Science Conference Earth Science Workshop, December 2000 – October 2001.
  
• Coordinate proposal preparations in response to 2004 NSF calls on DUSEL⁴ for (1) on-site independent research definition and infrastructure requirement, and (2) on-site development and design for multiple sites.
  
• Development of a lecture series for Spring 2005 on US DEEP⁵ underground labs (in mines and in tunnels), for educating research students and for coordinating LBNL/UCB multi-division/multi-department joint participation and collaboration in two new national initiatives (SECUREarth and DUSEL). 

Research Interests

Field Testing

• Fast flow path observations.
• Seepage threshold and capillary barrier evaluation.
• Heterogeneity quantification by air-injection testing and by systematic hydrological characterization.
• Fracture-matrix interaction and matrix diffusion measurements from field tracer testing with vertical scales from sub-meter to 20-30 m.
• Liquid release tests at different sites from porous formations to fractured and faulted blocks.
• Moisture monitoring under ventilated conditions and behind sealed bulkheads - observations and chemical analyses of condenses.
• Laboratory measurements of tracer penetration into matrix in grab samples collected during niche excavations and in core samples.
• Geochemical and isotopic data.

Underground Science

• Comparison and evaluation of mines and tunnels for underground research⁶.
• DEM and GPS/GIS⁷ study for topographic-relief criteria used in site selection.
• Cosmic ray imaging (with muon detectors) for space detection and monitoring⁸.

Repository Research

• Two-layer slanted emplacement design for optimal emplacement scheme.
• Natural and anthropogenic analogues for drift shadow and seepage diversion.
• Wireless mote⁹ sensor network for drift monitoring in performance confirmation¹⁰.
• Sustainability and survivability of life forms under extreme conditions.

Early Earth Science Studies

• Fractal model for rough-wall fractures, fracture flow laws.
• Conceptual models for fractured porous medium, fracture-matrix interactions.
• Surface cooling on thermo-hydrological effects, heat output, waste inventory.
• TOUGH¹¹ modeling and geothermal code evaluation.
• Transient pulse testing for fractured rocks.

Physics Training and Research

• Solid state band structures, density functional.
• Exciton, biexciton, and exciton complexes – Ph.D. thesis, 1973.
• Magnon and ferromagnetism.
• Muonium in solid.
• Particle resonances – summer internship, 1970.

¹Scientific Environmental/Energy Cross-cutting Underground Research for urgent solutions to secure Earth’s future – with dedicate teams on flow delineation, on geochemical engineering, and on bio-engineering. 

²Energy: Fossil Fuel and Geothermal; Environmental: DOE Site Cleanup, Nuclear Waste Disposal; Global Warming: CO2 Sequestration, Water Resources (e.g., snow melt reduction in high mountains).

³Office of Science & Technology and International.

⁴Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory – interacting with Nuclear physics, Particle physics, Astrophysics community and coordinating efforts of Geosciences, Biology, and Engineering community

⁵ Underground Science and Engineering on Defense, Environment, Energy, and Physics.  

⁶ e.g., deep sites for DUSEL, 2nd US civilian radioactive waste repository after Yucca Mountain; URLs for repository research, near-surface underground spaces for defense-related research and for environmental protection and reclamation, surface contaminated sites for field research centers for SECUREarth.

⁷Digital Elevation Models, Global Positioning System and Geographic Information System.

⁸e.g., in detecting changes in buried magma chamber filling before volcanic eruptions, and in remotely measuring neutrino fluxes from radioactive sources (power plants or buried wastes) in lieu of conventional alpha-, beta-, and gamma rays. The methodology was first applied in Egypt’s Chephren pyramid in 1960’s and in Mexico’s Teotihuacan’s Pyramid of the Sun in 2004.

⁹Motes are tiny, self-contained, battery-powered computers with radio links. Motes form the building blocks of wireless sensor network.

¹⁰e.g., physical conditions with temperature above 120oC in geothermal wells or around nuclear waste packages during thermal period; chemical conditions in acid mines with negative PH values.

¹¹Transport of Unsaturated Groundwater and Heat, is a family of multi-phase, multi-component, multi-species, and multi-dimensional integrated finite-difference codes, with different Equation of State (EOS) modules for a variety of applications, including geothermal, nuclear waste, environmental remediation, enhanced oil recovery, CO2 sequestration, methane hydrates, etc. The inverse modeling capability using TOUGH, the ITOUGH codes, has been developed also at LBNL, and used in model calibration and uncertainty analyses by researchers at LBNL/UC, other national labs, academia, industry, and institutions worldwide.