73

rd
EAGE Conference & Exhibition incorporating SPE EUROPEC 2011
Vienna, Austria, 23-26 May 2011
Frequency-dependent P wave reflection
coefficients for a double porosity reservoir

Xu Liu Duo Xu Yanghua Wang


Centre for Reservoir Geophysics, Imperial College London, UK

Summary
The effective Biot governing equations and the boundary conditions are applied to derive the
exact frequency dependent reflection coefficients of normal incident (NI) P-waves through a pure
elastic medium on the interface of a effective Biot media (DPDP media). The frequency
dependence of the reflection coefficients is calculated for three models; dim-out interface,
phase-shift interface and bright-spot interface. We show that the simple acoustic reflection
coefficients, without consideration of the slow P-waves, have sufficient accuracy compared
with the exact DPDP solution over the typical seismic frequency range.



73
rd
EAGE Conference & Exhibition incorporating SPE EUROPEC 2011
Vienna, Austria, 23-26 May 2011
Introduction
In recent years there has been an upsurge in interest among the geophysical community in
low-frequency seismic effects on normal incidence (NI) reflections from hydrocarbon
reservoirs (Chapman et al., 2006; Gurevich et al, 2004; Ren et al, 2009; Silin, 2006). Although
some frequency dependence of the reflection coefficient can be obtained by applying the
acoustic reflection coefficient formula for purely elastic media (after replacing the bulk
modulus or the acoustic impedance with values appropriate to poro-elastic mesoscopic
heterogeneity models) see for example, Ren et al ( 2009 ), the question remains as to
whether the slow P-wave in the media with the mesoscopic heterogeneities can be ignored or
not, such as in classical Biot media. To the best of our knowledge, there is no published paper
which has considered this problem. To resolve the issue, we have derived the reflection
coefficients through application of the poro-elastic wave governing equations of the double
porosity, dual permeability (DPDP) model incorporating the mescocopic inhomogeneities,
and the appropriate boundary conditions.
The governing equations of DPDP mode are decoupled so that the wave fields in the
DPDP reservoir can be written as the sum of the fast P-waves and the slow P-waves. They are
then applied along with the boundary condition at on interface between an impermeable
acoustic medium and a DPDP medium to obtain the exact reflection coefficients. We
compare the exact reflection coefficients with those calculated from applying the NI
coefficient equation for pure acoustic media, and find a pleasing consistency. This means that
the slow P-waves do not significantly affect the reflection coefficient, even for a reservoir
having mesoscopic heterogeneities.
Governing equations of the effective Biots theory
The governing equations of effective Biot theory are derived from the original DPDP
model of Pride and Berryman ( 2003a,b), and can be written as
(
(

(
(

=
(
(

f
c
*
22
*
12
*
12
*
11
p
p
a a
a a
i
1
q
v
V
V
e
, (1)
( )
( )
f f
p i
k e
e
q
-
q = v V (2)
( )
c f
p ie = + v q V (3)
where v is the average particle velocity of the solid grains,
c
p is the confining pressure,
f
p an
d q are the average pore pressure and the average macroscopic fluid flux respectively. k
-
is t
he effective permeability; q and
f
are the fluid viscosity and the density respectively and
is the bulk density. The complex elastic coefficients
x
mn
a are given by
.
( ) ( )

+ = = =
+ + = + =
e e e e i / ) ( r a D i / ) ( r a C C / D a a a
C / D a a a a a C / a a a
23 33 13 12
*
12
33 23 23 22
*
22
2
13 11
*
11
(4)
Here
2
v is the volumetric fraction of phase 2 (inclusions ), ( ) e is the internal flow transpor
t coefficient and the symmetric coefficients ( , 1, 2, 3)
mn
a m n = are six real constants which
correspond to the three Biot coefficients and can be explicitly expressed as the functions of t
he physical properties of each constituent ( Pride and Berryman, 2003a,b for details).
Frequency dependent reflection at a DPDP interface


73
rd
EAGE Conference & Exhibition incorporating SPE EUROPEC 2011
Vienna, Austria, 23-26 May 2011
If we set the wave field q as the combination of the fast P-wave components
f
q and the slow P-wave
components
s
q , and v for
f
v and
s
v in the similar way, we can define the two coefficients
f
o and
s
o in the following way:
s f
v v v + = and
s f
q q q + = (5)
f f f
q v o = and
s s s
q v o = (6)
The governing equations (1) to (3) can be decoupled as

= A + A + V + V
= A + A + V + V
0
0
4
2
3
2 2 2
2
2
1
2 2 2
s f s f
s f s s f f
q q q q
q q q q
e e
e e o o
(7)
where
(
(

(
(

=
(

I I
I I


*
22 21
12 11
22 21
12 11
k q

f
f
a a
a a
and =
(

A A
A A
4 3
2 1
(
(

I + I I + I
I + I I + I
21 22 21 22
11 12 11 12
s f
s f
o o
o o
(8)
The coefficients of equation (6) are given
( ) ( ) ( )
21 12 21
2
11 22 11 22
s , f
2 / 4 I
(

I I + I I I I = o (9)
The complex wavenumbers
f
k and
s
k for the fast P-wave and the slow P-wave are
obtained as
s f
3
s
1 f
k
o o
o
e

A A
= and
s f
2 4
s
s
k
o o
o
e

A A
= (10)
Consider a P-wave of amplitude
I
V in a pure elastic medium (medium a, having density
a
and P-
wave velocity
ap
v ) normally striking onto a DPDP medium and the reflected wave having an
amplitude
R
V , the total P-wave particle velocity
a
v in medium a can be written as
( ) ( )z z v t i z ik exp V t i z ik exp V
1 R 1 I a
e e + = (11)
The transmitted waves in the DPDP medium (medium b) comprise the fast P-wave and the
slow P-wave, such that the resultant P-wave particle velocity
b
v can be written as
z z v ) t i z ik exp( V ) t i z ik exp( V
s
b S 2
f
b bF b
e e + = (12)
Here
bF
V
bS
V are the amplitudes of the fast P-wave and the slow P-wave for particle
velocity. The quantities
f
b
k and
s
b
k are the complex wavenumbers of the fast P-wave and
slow P-wave, respectively, and z is the unit normal vector to the interface.
The boundary conditions at 0 = z are given by
bc ac
p p = ,
b a
v v = , 0
b
= z q (13)
The analytic NI reflection coefficient
NI
R is the ratio of the amplitude of the reflected
wave divided by the amplitude of the incident wave and can be shown to be given by
( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
( ) ( ) ( )
aP a
S F S
b 12 11
S F
b 12 11
F
aP a
S F S
b 12 11
S F
b 12 11
F
I
R
NI
v k a a k a a
v k a a k a a
V
V
R
o o o o
o o o o
+ + +
+ + +
= =


(14)


73
rd
EAGE Conference & Exhibition incorporating SPE EUROPEC 2011
Vienna, Austria, 23-26 May 2011

Figure 1. The dispersion curves of phase velocity (upper) and inverse quality factor (lower) of the fast
P wave for sample rock corresponding to water-filled double porosity sandstone.


Figure 2 The magnitude (upper ) and phase angle (lower) of the normal-incidence (NI) reflection
coefficient (
NI
R denoted by R) and the acoustic reflection coefficient (
NI
AR denoted by AR) versus
frequency
The purely acoustic reflection coefficient ) (e
NI
AR is complex valued and frequency dependent
and is defined by the following formula under the assumption of
i t
e
e
time dependence:
) ( v v
) ( v v
) ( AR
bp b ap a
bp b ap a
NI
e
e
e
+

= (15)
Here ) ( ) ( e e e
f
b bp
k v = is the complex phase velocity for the fast P-wave and ) (e
f
b
k is its complex
wavenumber which is obtained by equation (10).
Three types of interface with a DPDP reservoir
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0
10
1
10
2
10
3
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0
10
1
10
2
10
3
2400
2600
2800
3000
3200
c

(
m
/
s
)

1
/
Q

Frequency
0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000 10000
-90
-45
0
45
90
R Dim-out
R Phase-shift
R Bright-spot
AR Dim-out
AR Phase-shift
AR Bright-Spot
0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000 10000
0.00
0.15
0.20
0.25
R Dim-out
R Phase-shift
R Bright-spot
AR Dim-out
AR Phase-shift
AR Bright-Spot
N
I

m
a
g
n
i
t
u
d
e

P
h
a
s
e

a
n
g
l
e

(
d
e
g
r
e
e
)

Frequency (Hz)


73
rd
EAGE Conference & Exhibition incorporating SPE EUROPEC 2011
Vienna, Austria, 23-26 May 2011
The water-filled sample rock we test uses sandstone as the host rock (phase 1) and a volume
fraction (
2
v ) of 3% sand as the inclusions (phase 2), having a radius of = a 1m. This rock
corresponds to a depth of 10m according to Walton theory and the Hashin and Shtrikman bound (see
Pride et al, 2004 for details). Figure1 shows the dispersion curves of phase velocity ( )
c
c e (upper)
and attenuation 1 ( )
c
Q e (lower) of the fast P waves.
According to the reflection patterns in low-frequency range, the cap-rocks are chosen to constitute
three interfaces: a dim-out, a phase-shift and bright-spot respectively (Ren et al, 2009). For the dim-
out interface
a
=2100 Kg/m3, and
ap
v =2000 m/s; For the phase-shift interface,
a
=2320 Kg/m3,
and
ap
v =3080 m/s; and For the phase-shift interface,
a
=2600 Kg/m3, and
ap
v =4000 m/s. We make
a comparison of analytic NI reflection coefficient
NI
R with the pure acoustic reflection coefficients
) ( AR
NI
e for all three interfaces in Figure 2. From the figure we find that the NI reflection coefficients
of a double porosity reservoir are strongly dependent on the frequency for seismic waves and on the
other hand, ) ( R
NI
e and ) ( AR
NI
e perfectly match each other. This implies that slow P-waves, in the
porous medium with mesoscopic heterogeneities, do not significantly influence the NI reflection
coefficient for the fast P wave in the seismic frequency range.
Conclusions
Applying effective Biot governing equations and the boundary conditions, we derive the exact
frequency dependent reflection coefficients of normal incident (NI) P-waves through a pure elastic
medium on the interface of a effective Biot media (DPDP media). The frequency dependence of the
reflection coefficients is calculated for three models, a dim-out interface, a phase-shift interface and a
bright-spot interface. The calculated results show the NI reflection coefficients of a double porosity
reservoir are strongly dependent on the frequency for seismic waves and on the other
hand, ) ( R
NI
e and ) ( AR
NI
e perfectly match each other. This implies that slow P-waves, in the porous
medium with mesoscopic heterogeneities, do not significantly influence the NI reflection coefficient
for the fast P wave in the seismic frequency range.
Acknowledgement
We are grateful to the sponsors of the Centre for Reservoir Geophysics, Imperial College London,
for supporting this research.
References
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on AVO analysis. Geophysical Journal International, 167, 89105
Gurevich, B., Ciz, R., and Demmeman, A.I.M., 2004, Simple expressions for normal incidence
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1372-1377.
Ren, H., Goloshubin, G., and Hilterman, F.J., 2009, Poroelastic analysis of amplitude-versus-
frequency variations, Geophysics, 74(6), N41-N4
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