ITASCA Software Academy

Chris is a geomechanics engineer with experience in the numerical modeling of soil and rock and specializes in the development of machine learning models in the field of geomechanics. His current work focuses on the creation of surrogate models with artificial neural networks and training random forest models on core logging data that are used to predict rock strength at open-pit and underground mines.

Dr. Fu’s experience centers on computational, analytical, and experimental geomechanics in subsurface resource development (petroleum, geothermal energy, and mining) and underground excavation. He is experienced in the computational modeling of coupled geomechanics and fluid flow. He has experience in developing analytical models using fracture mechanics, designing and performing laboratory hydraulic fracturing and rock mechanics experiments, characterizing subsurface features, and integrating large field datasets with numerical simulations. Dr. Fu has worked on a variety of geomechanics projects, such as numerical modeling and analytical upscaling of hydraulic fracture swarms, experimental study of time-dependent fracture initiation, impact of natural fracture heterogeneities on hydraulic fracture propagation integrating discrete element modeling, laboratory experimentation, fracture mechanics modeling, and numerical analyses of dynamic tunneling processes and tunnel durability.