I am a research scientist and the MicroCT manager at the Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University. I am an experimentalist in geomechanics and an expert in advanced X-ray tomography. My research spans energy transition, induced seismicity, rock deformation, and advanced imaging. My recent work focuses on experiments and thermodynamics of salt deformation, aiming to understand whether rock salt heals and how it evolves over time, in relation to wellbore sealing and hydrogen storage in salt caverns; and the size effect of fault friction, in the context of induced seismicity. I am also the main scientist responsible for X-ray microscopy within the EPOS-NL program and EXCITE Network.

Main accomplishments:

• The size effect of friction: the scale dependence of the fault friction. The first meter-scale friction experiment with gouge. (Ji, et al., 2022)
• Salt healing:  4D imaging and thermodynamics. (Ji, et al., 2022)
• Porous rock:  3D microstructure of rock in relation to deformation mechanism and transport properties using x-ray CT imaging. (Ji,  et al.,2012, 2015; Baud, et al., 2105, 2021)
• GeoDIC:  A software for strain stress calculation from digital images.
• High-frequency microseismicity network. (Ji,  et al.,2017)

Link: Electron and X-ray Microscopy at Utrecht University

Movement along faults in the subsurface, English subtitles

Movement along faults in the subsurface,  Chinese subtitles