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Geological Society, London, Special Publications; 2007; v. 292; p. 353-374;
DOI: 10.1144/SP292.20
© 2007 Geological Society of London

Articles

Three-dimensional upscaling of fault damage zones for reservoir simulation

S. D. Harris, A. Z. Vaszi & R. J. Knipe

Rock Deformation Research Ltd, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK (e-mail: sdh{at}rdr.leeds.ac.uk)

Major faults are surrounded by damage zones of minor faults that, in siliclastic rocks, can form barriers to flow in their own right. Reservoir flow simulation, now a routine part of reservoir management, requires equivalent hydraulic parameters on the scale of the whole fault. Geological models of structurally complex reservoirs, from which flow simulator grids are generated, require information on the 3D characteristics of fault populations. Here, 3D stochastic models of fault damage zone (FDZ) architecture are generated based on fault population statistics (offset, orientation, length, thickness, spatial distribution) measured from seismic, outcrop and core data. These FDZ models provide input to a 3D discrete fault flow model (DFFM) and we consider the case when the minor faults have permeabilities (isotropic) that are several orders of magnitude lower than the host rock, and thus form partial barriers to flow. The DFFM is used to determine and characterize the impact of the parameters defining the FDZ on the predicted bulk FDZ permeability, connectivity, ‘efficiency’ as a barrier or retarder to flow, and the ‘effective’ fault rock throw to thickness relationship for the FDZ. The latter of the summary results presented provides a means for incorporating FDZs into conventional production simulation package models of structurally complex reservoirs.





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