Seismic detection of a hydraulic fracture from shear‐wave VSP data at Lost Hills Field, California

Geophysics ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Meadows ◽  
Don F. Winterstein

A shear‐wave (S‐wave) VSP experiment was performed at Lost Hills Field, California, in an attempt to detect hydraulic fractures induced in a nearby well. The hydrofrac well was located between an impulsive, S‐wave source on the surface and a receiver well containing a clamped, three‐component geophone. Both direct and scattered waves were detected immediately after shut‐in, when the hydraulic pumps were shut off and recording started. The scattered energy disappeared within about an hour, which is consistent with other measurements that indicate some degree of fracture closure and leak‐off within that period. Although S‐wave splitting was evident, no change was detected in the fast wave (polarized parallel to the fracture). However, the slow wave (polarized perpendicular to the fracture) did change over a period of about an hour, after which the prehydrofrac wavelet shape was recovered. The fact that only the wave polarized perpendicular to the fracture was affected is a dramatic confirmation of both theoretical predictions and laboratory observations of S‐wave behavior in a fractured medium. Subtracting the prehydrofrac wavelet from the wavelets recorded within the first hour after shut‐in revealed scattered wavelets that were diminished and phase‐rotated versions of the incident (prehydrofrac) wavelet. Arrival times of the direct and scattered waves were matched by ray tracing. We accounted for the scattered‐wave amplitudes by using numerical solutions of S‐wave diffractions off of ribbon‐shaped fractures. Amplitudes derived from full‐wavefield Born scattering, however, did not match recorded amplitudes. The phase of the scattered wavelets was matched very well by Born scattering when the incident wavelet was input, but only for fracture lengths no larger than half those predicted from fracture‐simulator models. These results show that a carefully controlled experiment, combined with accurate modeling, can provide important information about the geometry of induced fractures.

Geophysics ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. F1-F11
Author(s):  
Seiji Nakagawa ◽  
Thomas M. Daley

An orbital vibrator source (OVS), a fluid-coupled shear-wave source, has many properties useful for crosswell, single-well, and borehole-to-surface imaging of both P- (compressional) and S- (shear) wave velocities of reservoir rocks. To this day, however, only a limited number of quantitative models have been developed to explain its properties. In this article, we develop both 2D and 3D models of an OVS, allowing us to examine source characteristics such as radiation patterns, frequency dependence of wave amplitudes, and guided-wave generation. These models are developed in the frequency-wavenumber domain using the partial wave expansion of the wavefield within and outside the borehole. The models predict many unique characteristics of an OVS, including formation-property-dependent vibrator amplitudes, uniform isotropic S-wave radiation pattern, and small tube-wave generation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 222 (3) ◽  
pp. 2172-2188
Author(s):  
Ding Wang ◽  
Bo Li

SUMMARY A single shear wave passing through an elastic anisotropic rock can split into two quasi-shear waves (noted by S1 and S2) with different polarization forms if the particle vibration direction of the wave source does not lie in the symmetry plane of the rock. This study focuses on the properties of shear waves penetrating a porous rock containing a set of aligned permeable fractures. The polarization characteristics of shear waves were selected to describe the dynamic properties of the rock as they are sensitive to the parameters of fractures and saturating fluids. From a physics viewpoint, in addition to the compressional wave, the shear wave (splitting) is governed by a wave-induced fluid flow (WIFF) process due to the specific shear stress decomposition happening on the fractures. The polarization formulas of S1 and S2 were derived based on the frequency-dependent Christoffel equation, which are related to the properties of fractures, fluids and wave frequency. The influence of the properties of fractures and fluids on the velocity and attenuation anisotropies of shear waves were analysed. The results showed that the particle oscillations of two shear waves are not completely mutually orthogonal, and are affected by the pressure equilibrium magnitude between the fractures and the corresponding interconnected pores. The S2 (slow) wave (i.e. particle polarized on the plane approximately perpendicular to the fractures) is more sensitive to the saturated fluids and the WIFF process than that of the S1 (fast) wave (i.e. wave polarized on the plane approximately parallel to the fractures). A frequency factor was proposed for quantifying the effects of WIFF on shear wave polarization and attenuation. Measurements on the unique polarization and the anisotropy of shear waves can provide a generalized indicator to predict the properties of fractures and the migration of infilling fluids in the rock fracture systems.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillaume Flé ◽  
Guillaume Gilbert ◽  
Pol Grasland-Mongrain ◽  
Guy Cloutier

AbstractQuantitative mechanical properties of biological tissues can be mapped using the shear wave elastography technique. This technology has demonstrated a great potential in various organs but shows a limit due to wave attenuation in biological tissues. An option to overcome the inherent loss in shear wave magnitude along the propagation pathway may be to stimulate tissues closer to regions of interest using alternative motion generation techniques. The present study investigated the feasibility of generating shear waves by applying a Lorentz force directly to tissue mimicking samples for magnetic resonance elastography applications. This was done by combining an electrical current with the strong magnetic field of a clinical MRI scanner. The Local Frequency Estimation method was used to assess the real value of the shear modulus of tested phantoms from Lorentz force induced motion. Finite elements modeling of reported experiments showed a consistent behavior but featured wavelengths larger than measured ones. Results suggest the feasibility of a magnetic resonance elastography technique based on the Lorentz force to produce an shear wave source.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitry Chuprakov ◽  
Ludmila Belyakova ◽  
Ivan Glaznev ◽  
Aleksandra Peshcherenko

Abstract We developed a high-resolution fracture productivity calculator to enable fast and accurate evaluation of hydraulic fractures modeled using a fine-scale 2D simulation of material placement. Using an example of channel fracturing treatments, we show how the productivity index, effective fracture conductivity, and skin factor are sensitive to variations in pumping schedule design and pulsing strategy. We perform fracturing simulations using an advanced high-resolution multiphysics model that includes coupled 2D hydrodynamics with geomechanics (pseudo-3D, or P3D, model), 2D transport of materials with tracking temperature exposure history, in-situ kinetics, and a hindered settling model, which includes the effect of fibers. For all simulated fracturing treatments, we accurately solve a problem of 3D planar fracture closure on heterogenous spatial distribution of solids, estimate 2D profiles of fracture width and stresses applied to proppants, and, as a result, obtain the complex and heterogenous shape of fracture conductivity with highly conductive cells owing to the presence of channels. Then, we also evaluate reservoir fluid inflows from a reservoir to fracture walls and further along a fracture to limited-size wellbore perforations. Solution of a productivity problem at the finest scale allows us to accurately evaluate key productivity characteristics: productivity index, dimensional and dimensionless effective conductivity, skin factor, and folds of increase, as well as the total production rate at any day and for any pressure drawdown in a well during well production life. We develop a workflow to understand how productivity of a fracture depends on variation of the pumping schedule and facilitate taking appropriate decisions about the best job design. The presented workflow gives insight into how new computationally efficient methods can enable fast, convenient, and accurate evaluation of the material placement design for maximum production with cost-saving channel fracturing technology.


2022 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-53
Author(s):  
Zhiwen Deng ◽  
Rui Zhang ◽  
Liang Gou ◽  
Shaohua Zhang ◽  
Yuanyuan Yue ◽  
...  

The formation containing shallow gas clouds poses a major challenge for conventional P-wave seismic surveys in the Sanhu area, Qaidam Basin, west China, as it dramatically attenuates seismic P-waves, resulting in high uncertainty in the subsurface structure and complexity in reservoir characterization. To address this issue, we proposed a workflow of direct shear-wave seismic (S-S) surveys. This is because the shear wave is not significantly affected by the pore fluid. Our workflow includes acquisition, processing, and interpretation in calibration with conventional P-wave seismic data to obtain improved subsurface structure images and reservoir characterization. To procure a good S-wave seismic image, several key techniques were applied: (1) a newly developed S-wave vibrator, one of the most powerful such vibrators in the world, was used to send a strong S-wave into the subsurface; (2) the acquired 9C S-S data sets initially were rotated into SH-SH and SV-SV components and subsequently were rotated into fast and slow S-wave components; and (3) a surface-wave inversion technique was applied to obtain the near-surface shear-wave velocity, used for static correction. As expected, the S-wave data were not affected by the gas clouds. This allowed us to map the subsurface structures with stronger confidence than with the P-wave data. Such S-wave data materialize into similar frequency spectra as P-wave data with a better signal-to-noise ratio. Seismic attributes were also applied to the S-wave data sets. This resulted in clearly visible geologic features that were invisible in the P-wave data.


1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Tselentis ◽  
G. Delis

The importance of detailed knowledge of the shear-wave velocity structure of the upper geological layers was recently stressed in strong motion studies. In this work we describe an algorithm which we have developed to infer the 1D shear wave velocity structure from the inversion of multichannel surface wave dispersion data (ground-roll). Phase velocities are derived from wavenumber-frequency stacks while the inversion process is speeded up by the use of Householder transformations. Using synthetic and experimental data, we examined the applicability of the technique in deducing S-wave profiles. The comparison of the obtained results with those derived from cross-hole measurements and synthesized wave fields proved the reliability of the technique for the rapid assessment of shear wave profiles during microzonation investigations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Brum ◽  
Nicolás Benech ◽  
Thomas Gallot ◽  
Carlos Negreira

Shear wave elastography (SWE) relies on the generation and tracking of coherent shear waves to image the tissue's shear elasticity. Recent technological developments have allowed SWE to be implemented in commercial ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging systems, quickly becoming a new imaging modality in medicine and biology. However, coherent shear wave tracking sets a limitation to SWE because it either requires ultrafast frame rates (of up to 20 kHz), or alternatively, a phase-lock synchronization between shear wave-source and imaging device. Moreover, there are many applications where coherent shear wave tracking is not possible because scattered waves from tissue’s inhomogeneities, waves coming from muscular activity, heart beating or external vibrations interfere with the coherent shear wave. To overcome these limitations, several authors developed an alternative approach to extract the shear elasticity of tissues from a complex elastic wavefield. To control the wavefield, this approach relies on the analogy between time reversal and seismic noise cross-correlation. By cross-correlating the elastic field at different positions, which can be interpreted as a time reversal experiment performed in the computer, shear waves are virtually focused on any point of the imaging plane. Then, different independent methods can be used to image the shear elasticity, for example, tracking the coherent shear wave as it focuses, measuring the focus size or simply evaluating the amplitude at the focusing point. The main advantage of this approach is its compatibility with low imaging rates modalities, which has led to innovative developments and new challenges in the field of multi-modality elastography. The goal of this short review is to cover the major developments in wave-physics involving shear elasticity imaging using a complex elastic wavefield and its latest applications including slow imaging rate modalities and passive shear elasticity imaging based on physiological noise correlation.


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