Abstract: A New Approach to Fracture Modelling in Reservoirs Using Deterministic, Genetic and Statistical Models of Fracture Growth
Keith Rawnsley, Peter Swaby
It is increasingly acknowledged that in order to understand and forecast the behaviour of fracture influenced reservoirs we must attempt to reproduce the fracture system geometry and use this as a basis for fluid flow calculation.
This article aims to present a recently developed fracture modelling prototype designed specifically for use in hydrocarbon reservoir environments. The prototype "FRAME" (FRActure Modelling Environment) aims to provide a tool which will allow the generation of realistic 3D fracture systems within a reservoir model, constrained to the known geology of the reservoir by both mechanical and statistical considerations, and which can be used as a basis for fluid flow calculation.
Two newly developed modelling techniques are used. The first is an interactive tool which allows complex fault surfaces and their associated deformations to be reproduced. The second is a "genetic" model which grows fracture patterns from seeds using conceptual models of fracture development. The user defines the mechanical input and can retrieve all the statistics of the growing fractures to allow comparison to assumed statistical distributions for the reservoir fractures. Input parameters include growth rate, fracture interaction characteristics, orientation maps and density maps. More traditional statistical/stochastic fracture models are also incorporated.
FRAME is designed to allow the geologist to input hard or soft data including seismically defined surfaces, well fractures, outcrop models, analogue or numerical mechanical models or geological "feeling". The geologist is not restricted to "a priori" models of fracture patterns that may not correspond to the data.
AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90951©1996 AAPG International Conference and Exhibition, Caracas, Venezuela