Elastic wave propagation and attenuation in a double-porosity dual-permeability medium

To account for large-volume low-permeability storage porosity and low-volume high-permeability fracture/crack porosity in oil and gas reservoirs, phenomenological equations for the poroelastic behavior of a double porosity medium have been formulated and the coefficients in these linear equations identified. The generalization from a single porosity model increases the number of independent inertial coefficients from three to six, the number of independent drag coefficients from three to six, and the number of independent stress-strain coefficients from three to six for an isotropic applied stress and assumed isotropy of the medium. The analysis leading to physical interpretations of the inertial and drag coefficients is relatively straightforward, whereas that for the stress-strain coefficients is more tedious. In a quasistatic analysis, the physical interpretations are based upon considerations of extremes in both spatial and temporal scales. The limit of very short times is the one most relevant for wave propagation, and in this case both matrix porosity and fractures are expected to behave in an undrained fashion, although our analysis makes no assumptions in this regard. For the very long times more relevant for reservoir drawdown, the double porosity medium behaves as an equivalent single porosity medium. At the macroscopic spatial level, the pertinent parameters (such as the total compressibility) may be determined by appropriate field tests. At the mesoscopic scale pertinent parameters of the rock matrix can be determined directly through laboratory measurements on core, and the compressibility can be measured for a single fracture. We show explicitly how to generalize the quasistatic results to incorporate wave propagation effects and how effects that are usually attributed to squirt flow under partially saturated conditions can be explained alternatively in terms of the double-porosity model. The result is therefore a theory that generalizes, but is completely consistent with, Biot's theory of poroelasticity and is valid for analysis of elastic wave data from highly fractu