Fractures play a very crucial role in reservoir characterization. Their properties not only affect the subsurface hydro-carbon distribution but also the oil recovery, well design and risk assessment. Therefore, it is paramount to characterize the fractures using a minimized amount of computation and field testing efforts. In this work, we develop an integral based numerical modeling method, which explicitly simulates fractures in terms of the displacement-discontinuity in the seismic wavefield. The fractures are explicitly modeled as linear-slip boundaries on the numerical mesh. This approach allows a comprehensive investigation of the effect of source-to-fracture azimuth, which is defined as the angle between the fractures and wave source, on the wave scattering induced by fractures. This investigation includes three different types of fractures: a single fracture, multiple parallel aligned fractures and intersecting fractures. The results in term of fracture indices show a clear trend of this source-to-fracture azimuth effect. Finally, we establish a correlation between source-to-fracture azimuth and wave scattering, which, in turn, lays the foundation for a future inversion algorithm to quantify fracture properties.
Presentation Date: Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Start Time: 8:55 AM
Location: 330A
Presentation Type: ORAL
