Monitoring Elastic Parameter Changes in The Vicinity of Salt Caverns Due To Cyclic Loading by Seismic Waveform Inversion
Monitoring Elastic Parameter Changes in The Vicinity of Salt Caverns Due To Cyclic Loading by Seismic Waveform Inversion
Monitoring Elastic Parameter Changes in The Vicinity of Salt Caverns Due To Cyclic Loading by Seismic Waveform Inversion
ABSTRACT: Increased emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere lead to a strong requirement of
renewable energy resources. However, they are intermittent and need buffer storage to bridge the time-gap
between production and public demands. The storage of compressed gas energy in sealed underground structures
like salt caverns is one approach to bridge this time gap. The cyclic loading of compressed air in the cavern,
with periods ranging from hours to days, leads to a response of the host rock in the vicinity of the cavern. To
predict the mechanical behavior of rock salt an elastic-viscoplastic-creep model with damage is implemented in
the finite-element modeling software CODE-BRIGHT. The resulting changes of the elastic material parameters
after 400 loading cycles under extreme loading conditions are converted into seismic P- and S-wave velocity
variations. Changes occur in a thin layer with a maximum thickness of five meters near the ceiling and floor of
the cavern. Within this area P-wave velocities are reduced by 50 m/s to 160 m/s and S-wave velocities by 20 m/s
to 80 m/s, respectively. The local character of the material parameter changes prohibits a resolution by classical
traveltime based seismic tomographic approaches. Therefore, we develop an elastic Full Waveform Inversion
(FWI) strategy for two different acquisition geometries. Acquisition setup 1 consists of a vertical source and
receiver line inside the cavern, while in acquisition geometry 2 the receivers are moved into boreholes outside of
the cavern, resembling a classical cross-hole tomography. To mitigate the non-linearity of the inversion problem
due to strong multiple reflections of elastic waves radiated by the cavern, a time-damping approach is applied
to the recorded seismic data. Both acquisition geometries allow an accurate and highly resolved reconstruction
of the elastic material parameter changes in the vicinity of the cavern due to the cyclic loading process.
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Figure 2. The loading pattern applied to the inner boundary
of the cavern.
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Figure 3. True distribution of the Lamé parameters λ (a) and μ (b) in the cavern host rock after modelling the construction
process and strong cyclic loading operation.
forward problem and introduce the theory of full parallelized by domain decomposition using the Mes-
waveform inversion. sage Passing Interface (MPI). For a detailed descrip-
tion of the forward code, we refer to Bohlen (2002)
3.1 The seismic forward problem and Köhn et al. (2014).
The behavior of seismic waves in a 2D isotropic linear- 3.2 2D elastic full waveform inversion
elastic medium for the PSV case can be described by
the following equations of motion The classical FWI approach relies on the minimization
of the data residuals delta δv = vmod − vobs between
modelled seismic data vmod and field data vobs to
deduce high resolution models of elastic material
parameters in the subsurface. To solve this nonlin-
ear optimization problem an appropriate objective
function E has to be defined.
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4 MONITORING OF ELASTIC PARAMETER
CHANGES IN THE CAVERN MODEL
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Figure 6. Cavern model: Comparison of the true changes of P-wave velocity δVp (a) and S-wave velocity δVs (b) with the
corresponding FWI results using acquisition geometry 1 (c+d) and acquisition geometry 2 (e+f).
reconstruct distribution and magnitude of the seismic models and inverted by FWI as in section 4.2. The
velocity variations due to the cyclic loading of the results for acquisition geometry 1 (Fig. 7 c+d) show
cavern. Introducing transmitted seismic waves with that the P-wave velocity checkerboard can be resolved
acquisition geometry 2 does not significantly improve in a layer with a thickness of roughly 2 m along the
the FWI result (Fig. 6 e+f). The S-wave velocity vari- circumference of the cavern. In case of the S-wave
ations show a little bit less artifacts below the cavern velocity model, this layer extents to a thickness of
floor. about 7 m. Acquisition geometry 2 (Fig. 7 e+f) is not
able to add a significant improvement in terms of reso-
lution for the P-wave velocity model in the vicinity of
4.3 Resolution analysis the cavern compared to acquisition geometry 1. This
For a quantitative estimation of the FWI resolution can be explained by the long wavelength of the P-wave
and areal coverage of the two different acquisition within the host rock of about 40 m. Nevertheless, near
geometries we apply a checkerboard test. Except for the monitoring boreholes some tiles can be resolved
the air-filled cavern the homogeneous seismic back- by FWI, maybe due to possible trade-offs between the
ground velocity models Vp0 , Vs0 are covered with Vp and Vs model. Tiles of the Vs model are visible in
5 m × 5 m large tiles (Fig. 7a+b). For comparison the a layer with a thickness of 12 m around the cavern and
minimum wavelength of the P-wave in the cavern also in a maximum radius of 5 m around the receiver
equals 3 m, in the host rock 40 m, while the minimum boreholes. Midway between boreholes and cavern sur-
S-wavelength is 20 m. In each tile the P-wave veloc- face, the checkerboard resolution is strongly reduced.
ity varies between ±150 m/s, the S-wave velocity by In summary, both acquisition setups are able to mon-
±80 m/s. Corresponding to the approach in section itor the thin layer in the cavern vicinity affected by
4.1, synthetic data is calculated for the true seismic
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Figure 7. Checkerboard test: Comparison of the true changes of P-wave velocity δVp (a) and S-wave velocity δVs (b) with
the corresponding FWI results using acquisition geometry 1 (c+d) and acquisition geometry 2 (e+f).
the strong cyclic loading operation, especially S-wave receiver lines. The cylinder-symmetric cavern geom-
velocity changes. etry and material parameter distribution is a strong
simplification compared to a 3D asymmetric cavern.
Nevertheless, we assume that a similar seismic FWI
5 CONCLUSIONS monitoring concept could be applied to more complex
cavern geometries, if acquisition geometries based
We presented a feasibility study for a cavern mon- on seismic arrays and beam-forming techniques are
itoring concept based on seismic FWI, focusing on adapted to the problem.
elastic parameter changes within the host rock under
strong cyclic loading. For a realistic prediction of
the rock salt response, the cavern excavation and
strong cyclic loading operation is modelled using an
elastic-viscoplastic-creep model with damage, imple-
mented in the FE modeling software CODE-BRIGHT.
While the mechanical changes are very small and
localized in a thin layer around the cavern, the applied ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
seismic FWI approach is able to resolve these vari-
ations. As demonstrated by a checkerboard test, the This study has been carried out within the frame-
resolution of a pure reflection based acquisition setup work of the ANGUS+ research project (Bauer et al.
within the cavern is comparable with an acquisition 2013) funded by the German Federal Ministry of Edu-
geometry based on transmitted waves, requiring addi- cation and Research (BMBF). The FWI inversions
tional monitoring boreholes near the cavern to host the were performed on the NEC-HPC-Linux-Cluster at
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Kiel University. The 2D FWI code DENISE Black- caverns in rock salt subjected to mechanical cyclic load-
Edition is available under the terms of GNU GPL 2.0 ing. International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining
at https://github.com/daniel-koehn. Sciences 86, 115 – 131.
Köhn, D., D. De Nil, A. Kurzmann, A. Przebindowska, &
T. Bohlen (2012). On the influence of model parametriza-
tion in elastic full waveform tomography. Geophysical
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