SBIR Phase II: Computation of Three-Dimensional Travel Times for Seismic Prospecting via the Fast Marching Method

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目将商业化的创新和显着的偏微分方程，汉密尔顿-雅可比方程的粘性理论和双曲守恒定律的应用程序的最新进展，在石油和天然气勘探中使用的成像地震数据量的问题。为了进行当代储层开发和勘探，需要快速和准确的三维叠前深度偏移，其本身需要利用通常由射线追踪或有限差分走时生成的渐近绿色函数成功地参数化波传播现象。 在第一阶段，该公司分析了快速推进法（FMM）计算所需的渐近绿色函数的性能和能力。 FMM技术计算出初至方程的正确粘性解，是最快的旅行时间计算方案。 它们依赖于迎风有限差分算子的婚姻，用于满足熵的梯度、一致的满足熵的近似和快速堆排序算法。 该方法是无条件稳定的，不需要时间步长，并且特别适合于石油/天然气勘探中典型和固有的速度的大变化。 第一阶段的结果表明，FMM技术确实提供了显着的优势，比以前的技术，并可以扩展到计算充满活力和多值走时。 当与偏移软件相结合时，FMM的速度、鲁棒性和准确性可以显著提高地震成像的效率和准确性。 这对石油/天然气工业具有直接和重大的影响，因为它为在当今竞争激烈的勘探和生产环境中勘探和开采的复杂地质结构提供了快速、准确和易于使用的成像方法。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will commercialize innovative and significant recent advances in the applications of partial differential equations, viscosity theory of Hamilton-Jacobi equations, and hyperbolic conservation laws to problems of imaging seismic data volumes used in oil and gas exploration. In order to perform contemporary reservoir development and exploration, fast and accurate three-dimensional prestack depth migration is required, which itself requires successful parameterization of wave propagation phenomena with asymptotic Green's functions commonly generated by raytracing or finite difference traveltimes. During Phase I, the firm analyzed the performance and capabilities of fast Marching Methods (FMM) for calculating the required asymptotic Green's functions. FMM techniques compute the correct viscosity solution to the first arrival equation and are the fastest travel time computation schemes available. They rely on a marriage of upwind finite difference operators for entropy-satisfying gradients, consistent entropy-satisfying approximations, and fast heap sort algorithms. The methods are, unconditionally stable, require no time step, and are particularly well-suited for the large variations in velocities typical and inherent in oil/gas exploration. Phase I results indicate that FMM techniques indeed offer significant advantages over previous techniques, and can be extended to calculate energetic and multivalued traveltimes. When coupled with migration software, the speed, robustness and accuracy of FMM allows significant increase in efficiency and accuracy of seismic imaging. This has a direct and significant impact on the oil/gas industry by providing a fast, accurate and easy to use imaging method for the complex geological structures that are being explored and exploited in today's competitive exploration and production environment.