The behavior of elastic moduli with fluid content in the VTI media

Abstract

For addressing the behavior of a reservoir with different fluid types, the Biot-Gassmann equation often is the base of the practical simulation. Despite the prevalence application of this equation with the isotropy conditions, the unforeseen errors always expose in simulation results because of the anisotropy state in reality. We investigated the anisotropy model with the integration of two analytical strategies using a three-component VSP data set. We obtained an initial anisotropy model in the region of acquired walkaway VSP using slowness polarization inversion, and updated the anisotropy model with the application of anisotropy ray-tracing and tomography. We applied a layer-stripping approach to the anisotropy model during raytracing to optimize the inversion. Given a computed geomechanical model and extracted rock properties of a carbonate reservoir, we developed the anisotropy Biot-Gassmann model, for finding the elastic moduli. We used the substitution strategy to generate the dynamic model of elastic moduli. We showed how the compressional modulus and rigidity change with the anisotropy model in different fluid content. We found that integration of slowness polarization and raytracing tomography increases the maneuverability to control the predicted anisotropy model and intensifies the convergence rate of the inverse problem. We observed that the isotropy assumption in modeling the elastic parameters makes around 8–10 % drift value in compressional modulus relevant to the reality, whereas rigidity showed reluctant behavior to fluid.