Upscaling mechanical rocks properties and geomodeling

in: 26th gOcad Meeting, ASGA

Abstract

Fine levels of details for mechanical rock properties can be simulated during the reservoir modeling stages thanks to the impressive growth in computer power efficiency. But, it is sometimes necessary to model large-scale reservoirs with large cells while rock properties are determined at smaller scales. Then, the challenge is to determine equivalent properties of heterogenously elastic but transversely isotropic materials at an intermediate scale of the reservoir, and not only at the laboratory sample scale. This work presents an upscaling technique within the frame of g cad which represents a valuable advance in Reservoir modeling. Each coarse cell is composed of several smaller ones, from the fine-scale description. Each of the small cells is supposed to have isotropic elastic mechanical properties. The main point of this work is to assume that the coarse cells are transversely isotropic. Then, it is possible to build a local equivalent compliance tensor on a coarse cell from three numerical mechanical experiments (two odoemetric tests, and one pure shear) using Finite Elements Analysis. This methodology was proposed by Royer (2005); Mallet (2005) for permeability upscaling, which is here extended to geomechanical problems.

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    BibTeX Reference

    @inproceedings{TiteuxRM2006,
     abstract = { Fine levels of details for mechanical rock properties can be simulated during the reservoir modeling stages thanks to the impressive growth in computer power efficiency. But, it is sometimes necessary to model large-scale reservoirs with large cells while rock properties are determined at smaller scales. Then, the challenge is to determine equivalent properties of heterogenously elastic but transversely isotropic materials at an intermediate scale of the reservoir, and not only at the laboratory sample scale. This work presents an upscaling technique within the frame of g cad which represents a valuable advance in Reservoir modeling. Each coarse cell is composed of several smaller ones, from the fine-scale description. Each of the small cells is supposed to have isotropic elastic mechanical properties. The main point of this work is to assume that the coarse cells are transversely isotropic. Then, it is possible to build a local equivalent compliance tensor on a coarse cell from three numerical mechanical experiments (two odoemetric tests, and one pure shear) using Finite Elements Analysis. This methodology was proposed by Royer (2005); Mallet (2005) for permeability upscaling, which is here extended to geomechanical problems. },
     author = { Titeux, Marc-Olivier AND Mallet, Jean-Laurent AND Royer, Jean-Jacques },
     booktitle = { 26th gOcad Meeting },
     month = { "june" },
     publisher = { ASGA },
     title = { Upscaling mechanical rocks properties and geomodeling },
     year = { 2006 }
    }