Solutions of P-SV and SV-P waves in single-well imaging through reciprocity relations

Abstract

Single-well imaging (SWI) is a borehole measurement technique for detecting geologic structures outside a borehole by using arrays of receivers to record the waves reflected from these structures. The asymptotic solutions of P-P, SV-SV, and SH-SH waves in SWI have been obtained, but the P-SV and SV-P waves have been ignored in previous studies. It is necessary to know when these conversion waves are large and to estimate these waves when they are not ignorable. The analytical solutions of P-SV and SV-P waves are first derived using reciprocity relations between virtual concentrated forces and acoustic sources. The analytical results agree well with finite-difference solutions for monopole and dipole sources. We have found that, for a given source-receiver offset, the detected converted waves first increase and then decrease with the increase of the source-reflector distance. The relative amplitudes of converted waves to reflected waves are larger than 20% and cannot be ignored when the ratio of source-reflector distance to source-receiver offset is smaller than four. However, when the source-reflector distance is 10 or more times the source-receiver offset and the dip angle of the reflector is smaller than 10°, the amplitudes of the converted waves are smaller than 5% of the reflected waves. Furthermore, the relative amplitudes of converted waves increase with the dip angle of the reflector. The analytical solutions of converted waves are useful for simulating SWI wavefields and checking the inversion results in field logging.