Investigação integrada da dispersão das velocidades elásticas de rochas carbonáticas por microtomografia de raios X.

Abstract

This work analyzed the integrated effect of grain contacts, macroporosity and microporosity on elastic velocities of carbonate rocks from Araripe Basin, Potiguar Basin and Sergipe-Alagoas Basin, all located in Northeast Brazil. This study proposes a new method, which seeks to evaluate the variables that influence the observed dispersion in the relationship between elastic velocities and porosity of carbonate rocks.The macro and micro porosities were estimated from microCT digital images, while elastic wave velocities were measured in a pressure vessel under confining pressure of 40 MPa in dry samples. An index for grain contact quality was proposed here based on the volume reduction of 3D models of these contacts with the increasing of the smoothing level applied during model generation. Multivariate nonlinear regression functions were obtained in order to get relations between elastic velocities, macro and micro digital porosities, besides the quality index for grain contacts. These functions allowed estimation of compresional wave velocity (VP) and shear wave velocity (VS) with the highest possible accuracy, i.e., with a coefficient of determination R²=1. These relationships have potential to be used for mapping grain contact quality and microporosity in carbonate reservoirs. Grain contact quality is an important variable for geomechanics, while microporosity affects rock permeability. These two later variables are of much more difficult estimation than macroporosity and elastic wave velocities, which can be estimated from well logging and seismic data. Predictive models of contact quality index were defined for samples from the Araripe, Sergipe-Alagoas and Portiguar Basins. These models were applied in a well from the pre-salt region and the results indicate that the model defined for the Potiguar Basin is the most suitable to be applied in the Brazilian pre-salt wells. It is suggested to calibrate this model with data of rock samples from the pre-salt, in order to allow the joint inversion of seismic and well data to be able to map, with high precision, the spatial distribution of the porosity in these reservoirs.