MORPHOS

Flow-induced morphology modifications in porous multiscale systems

Porous media with morphology modifications are everywhere around us. For example, think of a snowpack subject to snow melting and water refreezing. Snow represents one of the largest freshwater resources available on Earth, and predicting its dynamics is crucial to have reliable climate models. But… snow is an extremely complex system, consisting of a solid icy matrix filled with air. When the ice crystals at the top of the snowpack melt due to the solar radiation, the resulting meltwater penetrates downwards, eventually refreezing. Water, ice and air interact in a complex manner, exchanging heat and influencing each other dynamics: as a result, predicting the evolution of snowpacks is challenging.

Another example of flow-induced morphology evolution is the dissolution of rocks in underground formations. During the process of geological carbon dioxide sequestration or in presence of Karstic formations, the porous rocks “dissolve” or “grow” due to the local increase of the concentration of minerals, e.g., calcite. This effect produces a variation in the medium morphology, namely new paths may open or existing pores close, and thus influences the flow: also in this case, determining the effect of the flow on the medium morphology, and viceversa, is arduous: dissolution or mineralization occur over hundreds or thousands of years, and experiments and modelling in analogue systems are essential.

A further category of processes involving flow-induced morphology variations is represented by the formation of sea ice or the solidification of multicomponent alloys. For instance, when sea ice forms, water solidifies generating an icy porous matrix, while salt is rejected, producing a local increase of the salt concentration. This will make sea water denser and generate a flow that interacts with the newly formed porous ice, influencing the subsequent system evolution.

These are just few of the natural and industrial processes involving flow-induced morphology modifications. In addition to the tangled fluid-medium interactions mentioned above, the dynamics of these systems is made more complex by their multiscale nature: the transport processes occurring at the small scales (pore-scale) influence also the large-scale dynamics, and investigating all these phenomena simultaneously is an ambitious task. In this project, with simulations, experiments and physical models, we will shed new light on the elusive dynamics of these complex systems.

Related press release and news can be found here

Publications

  1. How modeling assumptions shape predictions of convective mixing of carbon dioxide, De Paoli M. and Pirozzoli S. (2026) [link][pdf]
  2. Universal transport laws in buoyancy-driven porous mixing, De Paoli M. and Zhu X. (2026) [link][pdf]
  3. Flow morphology and patterns in porous media convection: A persistent homology analysis, De Paoli M., Pirozzoli S., Lalu C. and Kondic L. (2025) [link][pdf]

Events

Public outreach

  1. Lange Nacht per Forschung, TU Wien, Vienna, Austria. April 24, 2026 [link].
  2. TV report on the Austrian national breaking news ORF ZIB 2. November 25, 2025 [link].
  3. Radio report on the Austrian national breaking news Ö1 Mittagsjournal. November 25, 2025 [link].
  4. Flows in evolving porous materials, press release by TU Wien, September 5, 2024 [link].

Invited Talks

  1. De Paoli, M., Long-term storage of carbon dioxide in geological formations. Coordinators: Prof. Luca Brandt, Sofia Fellini and Matteo Bertagni, Invited Climate And Fluids / Exchange Seminar at the Department of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering, Polytechnic of Turin, Turin (Italy), Mai 15, 2026.
  2. De Paoli, M., Convective mixing in porous media: from CO2 sequestration to thermal energy storage. Coordinators: Prof. Gianluca Boccardo and Daniele Marchisio, Department of Applied Sciences and Technology, Polytechnic of Turin, Turin (Italy), Mai 14, 2026.
  3. De Paoli, M. and Pirozzoli, S., Mixing of complex fluids in confined porous media, at General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union, May 3-8, 2026, solicited talk in the session on Flow, transport, mixing, and reaction in heterogeneous multiphase systems across scales. Coordinators: Tomas Aquino, Juan J. Hidalgo, Insa Neuweiler. Vienna (Austria), May 7, 2026.
  4. De Paoli, M., Flow morphology in porous media convection: how heat and mass transport shapes flow structures, University of Udine, Coordinator: Prof. Cristian Marchioli, Polytechnic department of Eng. and Architecture, University of Udine (Udine, Italy), December 22, 2025.
  5. De Paoli, M., Multiscale analysis of convective mixing with dispersion: insights from experiments, simulations and modelling, International Workshop on Image Analysis and Modelling of Laboratory Porous Media Flow, Coordinators: Prof. Jakub Wiktor Both (Department of Mathematics) and Martin Fernø (Department of Physics and Technology), University of Bergen., Haaheim Gard, (Bergen, Norway), December 8, 2025
  6. De Paoli, M., Flow morphology in porous media convection: how heat and mass transport shape flow structures, Invited Colloquium at the Department of Mathematical Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Coordinator: Prof. Lou Kondic, New Jersey Institute of Technology (Newark, US), November 21, 2025.

Databases

  1. De Paoli, M. & Pirozzoli, S. (2026) Data supporting: ‘How modeling assumptions shape predictions of convective mixing of carbon dioxide’. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.32076915 [link].
  2. De Paoli, M., Pirozzoli, S. & Kondic, L. (2025) Data supporting: ‘Flow morphology and patterns in porous media convection: A persistent homology analysis’. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17529345 [link].

Presentations and posters

  1. De Paoli, M. and Pirozzoli, S., (2026) Mixing of complex fluids in confined porous media, poster at the Gordon Research Conference “Flow and Transport in Permeable Media”, Les Diablerets Conference Center (Switzerland), July, 19 – 24, 2026.
  2. Rossi, D. and De Paoli, M., (2026) Mixing with dispersion and buoyancy in 3D porous media, talk at the Gordon Research Seminar “Flow and Transport in Permeable Media”, Les Diablerets Conference Center (Switzerland), July 19 – 24, 2026.
  3. Vlad, G. and De Paoli, M., (2026) Experimental investigation of heat transport in convective porous media flows, talk at the Gordon Research Seminar “Flow and Transport in Permeable Media”, Les Diablerets Conference Center (Switzerland), July 19 – 24, 2026.
  4. Rossi, D. and De Paoli, M., (2026) Mixing with dispersion and buoyancy in 3D porous media, poster at the Gordon Research Conference “Flow and Transport in Permeable Media”, Les Diablerets Conference Center (Switzerland), July 19 – 24, 2026.
  5. Vlad, G. and De Paoli, M., (2026) Experimental investigation of heat transport in convective porous media flows, poster at the Gordon Research Conference “Flow and Transport in Permeable Media”, Les Diablerets Conference Center (Switzerland), July 19 – 24, 2026.
  6. De Paoli, M. and Pirozzoli S. (2026) Influence of fluid properties and boundary conditions on convective mixing in confined porous media, talk at the Computational Methods for Water Resources (CMWR), Bologna (Italy), June 28 – July 2, 2026.
  7. Rossi, D., Verzicco, R., Lohse, D. and De Paoli, M. (2026) Mixing with dispersion and buoyancy in porous media, talk at the Computational Methods for Water Resources (CMWR), Bologna (Italy), June 28 – July 2, 2026.
  8. De Paoli, M. and Pirozzoli S. (2026) Numerical simulations of convective mixing in confined porous media with complex fluids, Annual Meeting of the International Society of Porous Media (InterPore), Nantes (France), May 19-22, 2026.
  9. De Paoli, M. and Pirozzoli, S., Mixing of complex fluids in confined porous media, at General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union, May 3-8, 2026 (solicited talk) [pdf].
  10. Kondic L., Zhaoshu C., Pirozzoli S. and De Paoli, M. Flow morphology and patterns in porous media, convection: A persistent homology analysis, APS-DFD Annual Meeting, Houston (Texas, USA), November 23-25, 2025.
  11. De Paoli, M. and Pirozzoli, S., Mixing in confined porous media: effect of dimensionality, fluid properties and boundary interface constraints, APS-DFD Annual Meeting, Houston (Texas, USA), November 23-25, 2025.