TOUGH2 Course Information

TOUGH2 Training Course for Scientists and Engineers

A TOUGH2 beginner's training course will be held at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, December 2-3, 2008. The cost is $750 for non-students and $400 for students. Note that space is limited and registration is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Purpose of the Course

The TOUGH family of codes is used for simulating multi-phase fluid and heat flow and transport in porous and fractured media. Used by over 300 research laboratories, private companies and universities in at least 33 countries, the TOUGH codes are among the most requested codes from the U.S. Department of Energy's Science and Technology Software center. They have been applied to a wide range of studies involving the geological disposal of nuclear waste, CO2 geological sequestration, geothermal energy development, oil and gas production, environmental remediation and unsaturated zone hydrology. While ongoing development of TOUGH applications continues to expand modeling capabilities and incorporate increasingly complex processes, such as those associated with reactive chemistry (TOUGHREACT) and gas-hydrate dissociation (TOUGH+Hydrate), knowledge of the basic TOUGH modeling concepts serves as an important foundation. The goals of the TOUGH2 part of the training course are to (1) review fundamentals of multiphase fluid and heat flow, (2) present the design and input/output features of TOUGH2, and (3) provide hands-on training for application of TOUGH2 to a variety of flow problems.

Material to be Covered

  • Introduction to the TOUGH family of codes and applications
  • Underlying physics, numerical approaches, and program structure
  • Explanation of input and output files
  • The course will emphasize hands-on application of TOUGH2 to sample problems that are meant to familiarize users with TOUGH concepts, such as grid generation, specification of boundary conditions, initialization, and the use of sources and sinks
  • The most common equation of state (EOS) modules will be considered for a variety of applications and levels of complexity (ranging from isothermal problems with a single component and phase, to non-isothermal problems with multiple components and phases)

Course Requirements

  • Knowledge of the physics of fluid and heat flow and transport in porous and fractured media
  • Basic understanding of numerical methods for solving partial differential equations
  • Experience with computer programming (preferably using FORTRAN)
  • Familiarity with basic text editors in the PC environment (Notepad or WordPad) and with the DOS Command Prompt will be helpful (the course will be conducted on PC computers)

Material to be Distributed During the Course

Course attendees will be provided with the necessary course materials, including handouts of presentations and a User's Manual, and will be given access to computers on which the code is pre-installed (and compiled with the appropriate EOS modules).

Software Availability

Note that the cost of obtaining software licenses for participants' home institutes is not included in the cost of the training course. TOUGH2 is not sold by the Berkeley Lab, but can be licensed directly from the Energy Science and Technology Software Center, P.O. Box 1020, 175 Oak Ridge Turnpike, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-1020, Tel.:(865) 576-2606, E-mail: .

See the following websites for more information: