Dynamic seismic signatures of saturated porous rocks containing two orthogonal sets of fractures: Theory versus numerical simulations

Abstract

The dispersion and attenuation of seismicwaves are potentially important attributes for the noninvasive detection and characterization of fracture networks. A primary mechanism for these phenomena is wave-induced fluid flow (WIFF), which can take place between fractures and their embedding background (FB-WIFF), as well as within connected fractures (FF-WIFF). In this work, we propose a theoretical approach to quantify seismic dispersion and attenuation related to these two manifestations of WIFF in saturated porous rocks permeated by two orthogonal sets of fractures. The methodology is based on existing theoretical models for rocks with aligned fractures, and we consider three types of fracture geometries, namely, periodic planar fractures, randomly spaced planar fractures and penny-shaped cracks. Synthetic 2-D rock samples with different degrees of fracture intersections are then explored by considering both the proposed theoretical approach and a numerical upscaling procedure that provides the effective seismic properties of generic heterogeneous porous media. The results show that the theoretical predictions are in overall good agreement with the numerical simulations, in terms of both the stiffness coefficients and the anisotropic properties. For the seismic dispersion and attenuation caused by FB-WIFF, the theoretical model for penny-shaped cracks matches the numerical simulations best, whereas for representing the effects due to FF-WIFF the periodic planar fractures model turns out to be the most suitable one. The proposed theoretical approach is easy to apply and is applicable not only to 2-D but also to 3-D fracture systems. Hence, it has the potential to constitute a useful framework for the seismic characterization of fractured reservoirs, especially in the presence of intersecting fractures.