Erik Westman

About

Erik Westman is a professor in the Mining and Minerals Engineering department at Virginia Tech. His research interests include resource and reserve estimation, rock mechanics, mining-induced seismicity and seismic tomography, and data analytics for mine and quarry optimization. He has a background in mining and minerals engineering, having earned his Ph.D. from Virginia Tech in 1999, a master's degree in civil engineering from the University of Colorado in 1994, and a bachelor's degree in geophysical engineering from the Colorado School of Mines in 1986. His educational and professional background supports his focus on advancing mining technologies and safety through innovative research and data-driven approaches.

Research topics

• Geology
• Seismology
• Geotechnical engineering
• Materials science
• Mining engineering
• Soil science
• Composite material
• Mechanics
• Engineering
• Petroleum engineering

Selected publications

• Using an Experiment/Simulation-Integrated Approach To Investigate Fracture-Conductivity Evolution and Non-Darcy Flow in a Proppant-Supported Hydraulic Fracture

  SPE Journal · 2019-05-14 · 52 citations

  article

  Summary Optimizing proppant-pack conductivity in a hydraulic fracture is of critical importance to sustaining effective and economical production of petroleum hydrocarbons. In this study, a hybrid, experiment/simulation-integrated workflow, which combines the discrete element method (DEM) and the lattice Boltzmann (LB) method with laboratory-measured load-embedment correlations, was developed to advance the understanding of fracture-conductivity evolution from partial-monolayer to multilayer con…

  PublisherDOI

• Comprehensive study of the interactions between the critical dimensionless numbers associated with multiphase flow in 3D porous media

  Fuel · 2019-05-02 · 42 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Investigation of the conductivity of a proppant mixture using an experiment/simulation-integrated approach

  Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering · 2020 · 33 citations

  PublisherDOI

• Passive Seismic Imaging of Stress Evolution with Mining-Induced Seismicity at Hard-Rock Deep Mines

  Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering · 2020 · 28 citations

  Abstract This work aims to examine the stress redistribution with evolving seismicity rates using a passive seismic tomographic tool. We compiled a total of 26,000 events from two underground mines and partitioned them into multiple clusters in a temporal sequence, each of which contains 1000 events. To image stress redistribution associated with seismicity rates, we then run the tomographic studies using each cluster to yield seismic tomograms and computed the corresponding seismicity rate. We…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Stress Redistribution Monitoring Using Passive Seismic Tomography at a Deep Nickel Mine

  Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering · 2019-04-17 · 22 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• CAREER: Stress Redistribution Imaging for Rock Failure Prediction

  NSF · $402k · 2002–2008

Frequent coauthors

• Xu Ma

  Heilongjiang University of Technology

  11 shared

• Kray Luxbacher

  University of Arizona

  10 shared

• Brent Slaker

  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

  9 shared

• Nino Ripepi

  7 shared

• James E. McClure

  6 shared

• Setareh Ghaychi Afrouz

  Virginia Tech

  6 shared

• Michael M. Murphy

  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

  6 shared

• Ben Fahrman

  Virginia Tech

  5 shared

Education

• PhD, Mining and Minerals Engineering

  Virginia Tech

  1999

• MS, Civil Engineering - Geotechnical

  University of Colorado - Denver

  1993

• BS, Geophysical Engineering

  Colorado School of Mines

  1986

Similar researchers at Virginia Tech

• Richard Bishoph-47
• Wencai Zhangh-32