Identification of viscoelastic properties from numerical model reduction of pressure diffusion in fluid-saturated porous rock with fractures

Abstract

This paper deals with the computational homogenization and numerical model reduction of deformation driven pressure diffusion in fractured porous rock. Exposed to seismic waves, the heterogeneity of the material leads to local fluid pressure gradients which are equilibrated via pressure diffusion. However, a macroscopic observer is not able to measure the diffusion process directly but senses the intrinsic attenuation of an apparently monophasic viscoelastic solid. The aim of this paper is to establish a reliable, yet numerically efficient, computational homogenization method to identify the viscoelastic properties of the macroscopic substitute model. Inspired by the Nonuniform Transformation Field Analysis, we incorporate a Numerical Model Reduction procedure. The proposed method is validated for several scenarios ranging from pressure diffusion in an unfractured poroelastic matrix, via localized pressure diffusion in interconnected fractures embedded in an impermeable matrix, to the fully coupled pressure diffusion both in fractures and the embedding poroelastic matrix.