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Arash Memarzadeh, a recent Tech graduate, placed first in the SPE International Student Paper Contest during the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition in Houston.

This was truly a worldwide competition. The best of the best compete at this stage and Arash won this very outstanding award. We are all very proud of him.

Dr. Hamid Rahnema, Memarzadeh's advisor

Memarzadeh graduated in May 2015 and now 工作s for California Resources Corporation, the company that also supported his master’s 研究 project. For his thesis 工作, he created a large testing system in a third-floor lab in MSEC.

“We inject steam and specialized solvents into the heaviest, most viscous  oil in the world,” Memarzardeh said. “We built a scaled-down replica of an oil reservoir owned by the investors and are pumping in various fluids to monitor all their properties 模型内部. It’s a lot of actual experiments, not just computer simulation.”

Memarzadeh’s goal was to see how heavy oil reacts to steam and various solvents. He also created a simulation program that helps determine how 该系统 will behave under different circumstances.

“I developed a never-been-seen-before thermodynamic model of hydrocarbon and steam interactions,” he said. “The testing system shows how much we can enhance oil production with solvent, while the program shows exactly how steam reacts with solvent inside 该系统.”

Dr. Rahnema说 Memarzadeh was very deserving of the award because his 工作 will contribute to more efficient and economic heavy oil recovery. 

“Arash’s biggest challenge was designing and setting up the subsurface conditions,” Dr. Rahnema说. “He was required to create sustainable high temperature conditions and while 工作ing with extremely thick, viscous oil. Arash actually built all the equipment from scratch – with help from the machine shop. It’s a 威尼斯人app下载 facility 他建造了它.”

Rahnema说 Memarzadeh’s project is indicative of the practical 研究 being conducted in the Petroleum Engineering Department at Tech.

“The strong point of Arash’s 工作 is how we integrate pure 研究 in the lab with a real-world problem in the field,” Rahnema说. “That close integration was an important feature of Arash’s 研究. We brought a graduate student onto continue his 工作 in the department and we hope to continue the program this year.”

Memarzadeh came to Tech in 2012 after earning his bachelor’s in physics at St. 玛丽的 College of California. He qualified for the international event by winning a regional paper competition, which was held at 威尼斯人app下载 in the spring.

“This 研究 is a big deal within the industry,” he said. “If successful, it’ll result in a full scale pilot test well.”

He completed an internship with California Resources Corporation during the summer of 2014. His internship gave him first-hand knowledge of the problem in the field and the objective for the 研究 project. The company then asked him – along with 他的导师博士. Hamid Rahnema – to build the testing system and perform simulation 工作.

The conference award was especially gratifying because of the large support of New Mexico Tech students, faculty and alumni, he said.

“We had a lot of supporters from 威尼斯人app下载 who came and watched the competition, along with my fiancé,” he said. “We must have had over 30 Techies there and everyone cheered so loudly, overwhelming the rest of the audience when they announced my name. I’ll remember that loud applause for the rest of my life.”