Numerical local upscaling of elastic geomechanical properties for heterogeneous continua

Abstract

An efficient, numerical local upscaling technique for estimating elastic geomechanical properties in heterogeneous continua is proposed. The upscaled anisotropic elastic properties are solved locally with various boundary conditions and reproduce the anisotropic geomechanical response of fine-scale simulations of sand–shale sequence models with horizontal and inclined shale bedding planes. The algorithm is automated in a parallel program and can be used to determine optimum upscaling ratios in different regions of the reservoir. The successful application of the proposed upscaling method in a field-scale coupled reservoir–geomechanics simulation demonstrates an improvement in overall computational efficiency while maintaining accuracy in the geomechanical response and reservoir performance.