Modeling of discrete intersecting discontinuities in rock mass using XFEM/level set approach

摘要

Modeling of discontinuities is of major importance to assess the geomechanical behavior of oilrnand gas reservoirs. Traditionally, discrete discontinuities have been introduced in the numerical analysis usingrncontinuum with modified constitutive laws (e.g. multi-laminate model (ML) or zero-thickness interface elementsrn(IE’s)). More recently, there have been several attempts to use extended finite element method (XFEM). Therndevelopment of an XFEM tool could lead to improved predictions for porosity/permeability changes in coupledrngeomechanical reservoirs. Multiple intersecting faults are often the case in complex Reservoir and has beenrnexplored less in the literature. In this work, we have presented a novel methodology based on XFEM to analyzernthe behavior of multiple intersecting faults. Detailed mathematical framework has been derived by using thernconcept of level-set and is implemented using distributed computing to solve complex geo-mechanical problems.rnFor validation purpose, we analyze the different examples and comparison them with standard finite elementrnmethod using zero-thickness IE’s (IE-FEM).