Investigation of sensitivity of surface deformation to subsurface properties and reservoir operations

An experimental study is performed to understand the sensitivity of ground deformation to subsurface properties and operations of oil and gas fields. Ground deformation, or more severely subsidence, may pose concerns for human settlements situated above the reservoir. This Masters thesis will study a realistic sample problem on its surface deformation sensitivity, in hopes of providing a sound basis for future characterization of subsurface properties and the forecast of surface deformation due to oil and gas production. Iteratively coupled simulations are performed to test how sensitive the surface deformation is to changing subsurface parameters. To test the validity of such coupled simulator, comparison of the displacement results with those of another commercially available software is also carried out. Results show that the change of surface displacement particularly in the vertical direction tends to be within the range of detection of satellites, of which data will serve as the input of future inversions with the Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF).

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Li, Pui-Wa

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Dennis B. McLaughlin.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/74466

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/74466