Ripudaman Manchanda Email & Phone Number

Midland, Texas, United States

Spring, TX

Austin, Texas Area

Primary project: Predictive fracture modeling and reservoir simulation of unconventional oil and gas reservoir well pads.This project required the development of a general purpose poroelastic pad-scale reservoir-coupled fracturing simulator that could be applied to various applications in the oil and gas industry.Key highlights:-> Developed a 3-D.

Austin, Texas Area

• Shale Gas Hydraulic Fracturing
• Analyzing fracturing data of previously fractured wells in the Barnett shale-gas play to estimate stress on proppant in the fractures.
• Developing technique to estimate maximum horizontal stress from fracture pressure data using Itasca software – FLAC3D.
• Managing field trial of the Texas Two-Step fracturing methodology with Halliburton and Pioneer Natural Resources in the Barnett play.Fracture Design using Fracpro®PT and NSI-Stimplan
• Recommend perforation intervals and treatment schedules to O.V.L. by designing fractures using Fracpro®PT and NSI-Stimplan.

Austin, Texas Area

• Reduced millions of dollars in capital expenditure for operators by performing completions design optimization and developing reservoir fluid and stress management strategies in various US basins.
• Reduced risk of parent well damage from child well frac hits in the Permian, STACK, Bakken and Eagle Ford by developing mitigation strategies such as refracturing, pre-loading, optimizing child well completions design.
• Combined geomechanics and reservoir simulation to improve IOR methods and strategies such as huff-n-puff.

• Micro-mechanical modeling of the mechanical, failure and flow properties of unconsolidated sands using discrete element methods.Supervisors: Prof. Mukul M. Sharma & Dr. Jon E. Olson
• Leading a project to simulate experiments conducted on unconsolidated sands using discrete element methods. These experiments include uniaxial, biaxial & triaxial tests performed at various confining pressures.
• Challenges included modeling and visualizing the experimentally observed shear failure in the samples; and simulating the flow of fluid through the samples to observe the permeability change due to failure.
• The simulation software used to replicate the mechanical behavior of the pack was Particle Flow Code 3D, developed by Itasca. Additional visualizations were accomplished using codes written in Matlab. Flow simulations.

• Petrophysics Lab TATeacher: Prof. Mukul M. Sharma
• Supervised and assisted students in performing petrophysics lab experiments.
• Conducted regular quizzes and advised students on the nuances of technical report writing.
• Conducted sessions for students to clarify their conceptual doubts.

• Modeling Hydraulic Fracture Propagation using GMRSSupervisors: Dr. Joseph Schmidt and Adinathan Venkitaraman, Completions Engineering Unit.Objectives:
• Test and calibrate the capabilities of Chevron’s in-house Geo-Mechanical Reservoir Simulator (GMRS).
• Recommend perforation schedule and completion interval for the Bigfoot wells to avoid shale barrier breakthrough into the over-lying and under-lying shale layersAccomplishments:
• Demonstrated vulnerabilities in GMRS and NSI-Stimplan by deriving analytical expressions from fundamentals.
• Proposed solutions to fix the vulnerabilities of GMRS and NSI-Stimplan.
• Recommended a perforation interval to avoid shale barrier breakthrough in a water injection field case.

• Simulating the stability of a hemispherical arch while sand production.Supervisor: Dr. Richard Birchwood, Geomechanics Specialist, Geomechanics Group, Schlumberger Data & Consulting ServicesObjectives:
• Simulate the formation of a hemispherical arch (formed during sanding of a reservoir) using discrete element methods.
• Observe the effective stress distribution around a hemispherical cavity representing a sand arch
• Investigate the effects of in-situ stresses on the stability of the arch.
• To compare analytical and discrete element solutionsAccomplishments:
• Used an open source software, LAMMPS, to build the model and perform the simulations.

• Lumped Kinetics Modeling Advisors: Dr. R. Uppaluri and Dr. P. Balasubramanian
• Modeling hydrocracking processes in the industry using continuous lumped kinetics modeling.
• Non-linear optimization of variables to estimate the parameters for the lumped kinetics model.
• Dissertation: Parameter Estimation in Hydrocracking of Vacuum Gas Oil using Continuous Lumped Kinetics
• Conference Publication: Review on Kinetic Modeling of Hydrocracking and Hydroisomerization Processes of n-alkanes on Bifunctional Zeolites. (ChemCon 2007)
• Conference Publication: Reaction Identification & Parameter Estimation in Hydrocracking of Vacuum Gas Oil Using Discrete Lumped Kinetics. (23rd National Convention of Chemical Engineers, Roorkee)

• Reconstruction of DawsoniteAdvisor: Prof. Javier Perez-Ramirez
• Conducted experiments in the highly equipped Heterogeneous Catalysis lab.
• Assisted in the breakthrough research of reconstruction of dawsonite crystals through alumina carbonation.
• Exposure to working in a team comprised of people from diverse backgrounds.
• Journal Publication: Reconstruction of Dawsonite by Alumina Carbonation in (NH4)2CO3: Requisites & Mechanism. Chem. Mater. 20 (12), 3973–3982, 2008.

Doctor Of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Petroleum Engineering, 3.90/4.00

Activities and Societies: SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers) PGSA (Petroleum Graduate Students Association)

M.S., Petroleum And Geosystems Engineering, 3.90/4.00

Activities and Societies: SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers) PGSA (Petroleum Graduate Students Association) Overall GPA: 3.90/4.00 Major.

B.Tech, Chemical Engineering

Activities and Societies: Member of IIChE ( Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers). Overall GPA: 8.89/10.00 Major GPA: 9.14/10.00.

Education record