Low‐frequency layer‐induced dispersion in a weak‐contrast vertically heterogeneous orthorhombic medium

SUMMARY Seismic anisotropy can occur in rocks that have complicated internal structures and thin layering. Wave-induced fluid flow (WIFF) is one of the major causes of elastic wave dispersion and anisotropy. The principle goal of this paper is to combine the effects of WIFF and layer-induced anisotropy in orthorhombic (OTR) models that are often used in the seismic industry nowadays to describe azimuthal and polar anisotropy. We derive the effective frequency-dependent anisotropy parameters based on the Chapman model that accounts for the WIFF mechanism. First, we summarize two major problems to establish the link between the frequency-dependent seismic anisotropy and the multiple sets of fractures with different scales and orientations. Then we specify the multiple mesoscale fractures to be vertical and orthogonal so as to simplify the rock physics model to be an ORT medium. We also give the explicit expressions for the effective stiffness and the Thomsen-style parameters (vP0, vS0, ϵ1, ϵ2, γ1, γ2, δ1, δ2, δ3). Finally, we derive the effective frequency-dependent anisotropy parameters for ORT multiple layers using the Backus averaging under the approximation of weak contrast between layers. We also investigate the influence of frequency, fracture parameters (density and scale), effective porosity and volume fraction on the Thomsen-style parameters.

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Computation of velocities and polarization vectors in weakly anisotropic media

Roganov

Stovas

Roganov

2021

GZh

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To compute the phase velocities in the weakly anisotropic media, we propose to transform the Christoffel matrix K into an adapted coordinate system, and, then, apply the perturbation theory to the resulting matrix X. For a weakly anisotropic medium, the off-diagonal elements of the matrix X are small compared to the diagonal ones, and two of them are equal to 0. The diagonal elements of the matrix X are initial approximations of the phase velocities squared. To refine them, it is proposed to use either iterative schemes or Taylor series expansions. The initial terms of the series and the formulas of iterative schemes are expressed through the elements of the matrix X and have a compact analytical representation. The odd-order terms in the series are equal to 0. To approximate the phase velocities of the S1 and S2 waves, a stable method is proposed based on solving a quadratic equation with the coefficients being expressed in terms of the matrix elements and the precomputed value of the qP wave phase velocity squared. For all iterative schemes and series, the convergence conditions are derived. The polarization vector of the wave with the square of the phase velocity is defined as the column with maximum modulus of cofactor of the matrix K-I. The group velocities vectors are computed based on the known components of the polarization vector, the directional vector, and the density-normalized stiffness coefficients. The computational accuracy is demonstrated for the standard orthorhombic model. It is shown how the perturbation theory can be applied to media with strong anisotropy. To do this, first we need to apply several QR transforms or Jacobi rotations of the Christoffel matrix, and then use the perturbation theory. This method with four Jacobi rotations is applied to the calculation of the phase velocities squared for a triclinic medium with a maximum number (32) of singularity points. In this case, the phase velocities are computed with a relative error less than 0,004 %.

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Low‐frequency layer‐induced dispersion in a weak‐contrast vertically heterogeneous orthorhombic medium

Cited by 3 publications

References 12 publications

Anisotropy and dispersion of elastic waves in periodically multilayered anisotropic media

Anisotropy and dispersion of elastic waves in periodically multilayered anisotropic media

Frequency-dependent anisotropy due to two orthogonal sets of mesoscale fractures in porous media

Computation of velocities and polarization vectors in weakly anisotropic media

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