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2014 SEG
SEG Denver 2014 Annual Meeting
DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1190/segam2014-0895.1
Page 2793
expressed as
residue pressure and
residue strain
as
, where
is the magnitude of
is a unit tensor, and is linked to
.
(1)
Due to the presence of heterogeneity and residue stress, the
stress field of the inclusion deviates from the background
stress and can be expressed as (Mura, 1987):
(
)
(
),
(2)
where and
are, respectively, the perturbation of stress
and strain from the background (or applied) stress
and
strain , and the applied stress has
. Parameter
is the eigenstrain that is related to the strain perturbation
through the Eshelby tensor (Eshelby, 1957) as:
(
)
,
(3)
where a new eigenstrain is introduced as
.
Substituting equation 3 into equation 2 yields
[ (
)] (
).
(4)
Fluid pressure
Consider a closed inclusion where fluid is trapped, the
strain deformation of the inclusion can be given as
,
(5)
where
is the stress of the inclusion material, which is
also called fluid pressure if the inclusion is filled with fluid.
In such a case,
is given as
(
) ,
where
denotes the magnitude of the total fluid pressure
in the inclusion. Solving equations 4-5 yields
,
(6)
where
(
) (
),
(
)
, and
[ (
)] . Note the difference between the stress
of inclusion material
and residue pressure
. Here
has the contribution from both applied stress and residue
pressure. Also note that tensors , , , and depend on
the strength of the background material and geometry of
the inclusions such as the shape of pores and cracks.
Tensors and also depend on fluid properties.
Effective elasticity
After calculating the average stress and strain of the
system, I write the effective compliance as a function of
the applied stress and residue pressure:
(
)(
),
(7)
where
and
denotes, respectively, the compliance of
the background material and the fluid. Parameter denotes
the porosity and
is the differential stress (or
commonly referred to as effective stress). It is clear that
if
. Note equation 7 was derived for dilute
concentration of inclusions where the interaction among
inclusions is ignored. To account for higher volume
concentration of pores and cracks, modeling schemes such
as differential effective medium (DEM) can be used.
Equation 7 suggests that effective velocity can be expressed
2014 SEG
SEG Denver 2014 Annual Meeting
),
(
)(
(8)
where
is the normalized differential stress
and
is pore fluid pressure. Quantity
is the
residue pressure normalized by confining pressure, and
is the combination of
several components of tensor . As shown in equation 8,
the effective compliance reduces with the increase of the
normalized differential stress. Hence, as the confining
pressure increases, the effective velocities increase.
Interpretation of fluid pressure
Equation 6 suggests that fluid pressure is a function of the
microstructure and medium properties of rocks, as well as
applied stress and residue pressure. If residue pressure is
absent (
), it reduces to
, which is
consistent with pore pressure obtained by Xu (1998).
According to equation 6, the differential stress can be
written as
(
)
,
(9)
where the first term, (
) , is caused by the
heterogeneity of the medium, i.e., due to the difference
between
and . For example, if the inclusion material
has the same properties as the background (
), this
)
gives
and hence (
. If the inclusion
material becomes extremely compliant ( ), tensor
reduces to 0 and approaches . Since in such cases the
inclusion material is too compliant to support any residue
stress (i.e.,
), the stress of inclusion material, ,
reduces to 0, making the inclusion behaving like a vacuum.
If fluid pressure deviates from hydrostatic pressure, then
abnormal pressure appears, which is also termed
overpressure when fluid pressure exceeds hydrostatic
pressure. As shown in Figure 2, hydrostatic pressure can be
given as
, where
is brine density, is
DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1190/segam2014-0895.1
Page 2794
(
), where
(
) ].
[
(10)
If the sedimentation rate is relatively high or if formation
permeability becomes too low to allow free fluid flow, the
pore system starts to close and this marks the emergence of
disequilibrium compaction. For such a system containing
closed pores, the effective compliance can be written as
[
((
)
) ],
(11)
where
denotes the stiffness of the fluid in a tensorial
form. Equation 11 can also be rewritten in terms of applied
stress, as shown in equation 7 (with
set to 0).
A transition zone usually occurs where normal compaction
is giving place to disequilibrium compaction. In these
rocks, both open and closed inclusions coexist. Effective
compliance is then a combination of equations 10 and 11.
2014 SEG
SEG Denver 2014 Annual Meeting
DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1190/segam2014-0895.1
Page 2795
2014 SEG
SEG Denver 2014 Annual Meeting
Conclusions
In this study, an inclusion-based micromechanical model
was used to characterize rock properties (effective velocity
and fluid pressure). The proposed method extends Xus
(1998) poroelastic model for the undrained fluid system by
accounting for residue pressures due to, e.g., thermal fluid
expansion and hydrocarbon generation. Heterogeneity due
to the presence of inclusions and residue pressure in
inclusions are treated consistently as an eigenstrain
problem, and effective elasticity of the medium is
expressed through applied stress and residue pressure.
I analyzed the microstructure of rocks under various
geological conditions and used the model to characterize
velocity and fluid pressure for various mechanisms that
have been proposed for pressure effects, e.g., normal
compaction, disequilibrium compaction, and thermal fluid
expansion. Other possible mechanisms such as clay
diagenesis are out of the scope of this work.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Statoil for the permission to
publish this work. Thanks also go to (but not limited to)
Ivar Brevik, Chez Uzoh, Hege M. Nordgrd Bols, Tom
Sun, Dan Ebrom, and Cem Ozan.
DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1190/segam2014-0895.1
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1190/segam2014-0895.1
EDITED REFERENCES
Note: This reference list is a copy-edited version of the reference list submitted by the author. Reference lists for the 2014
SEG Technical Program Expanded Abstracts have been copy edited so that references provided with the online metadata for
each paper will achieve a high degree of linking to cited sources that appear on the Web.
REFERENCES
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of the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME, SPE-5544-MS.
Eshelby, I. D., 1957, The determination of the elastic field of an ellipsoidal inclusion, and related
problems: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A, 241, no. 1226, 376396.
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Zoback, M., 2007, Reservoir geomechanics: Cambridge University Press.
2014 SEG
SEG Denver 2014 Annual Meeting
DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1190/segam2014-0895.1
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