Coupling a fluid flow simulation with a geomechanical model of a fractured reservoir

Abstract

Improving the reliability of integrated reservoir development planning and addressing subsidence, fault reactivation and other environmental impacts, requires increasingly sophisticated geomechanical models, especially in the case of fractured reservoirs where fracture deformation is strongly coupled with its permeability change. Reservoir simulation has historically treated any geomechanical effects by means of a rock compressibility term/table, which can be improved by simulating the actual geomechanical response and their coupled effects. A coupled model should successfully reproduce how the complex fractured reservoir behavior (dual porosity/permeability model) impacts fluid flow and permeability change, as well as how the flow state affects the deformation of fractures. This work presents the coupling strategy in the framework of a smeared approach to link a dual-porosity model as a means to treat flow in the fractures and the rock matrix, with a geomechanical model that incorporates fractured media via multi-laminate constitutive relations. The numerical results for two benchmark examples are presented.