Remote charaterization of geological and geotechnical materials and structures

描述岩土和地质结构的主要困难之一是不确定结构的大小、形状和材料特性。这种不确定性是由于使用钻孔、浅层挖掘等对结构进行的地下采样有限造成的。由于经济和实际原因，它是稀疏的，不能与结构的每个区域相交。这种不确定性还影响到这些结构的工程设计，如地基、矿坑/隧道、碳氢化合物钻探规划和储油层设计。本提案中描述的研究是一个广泛的研究计划的核心组成部分，该计划调查地球物理成像技术，以协助对地下采样地点或钻井交叉点之间的地质结构和现场条件进行远程成像和评估。目前正在进行的研究任务主要针对以下方面：1)利用地表瑞雷波对近地表地质构造进行成像以进行地下岩土工程调查，并对废弃矿场等浅层异常进行定位和测绘；2)开发用于岩土离心机模拟的实验室成像方法；3)对与提高采油能力相关的储集层孔隙流体驱替进行成像；4)通过分析钻头产生的地震波实时监测钻井性能；以及v)为矿产勘探工作中的块状硫化物矿体成像。研究任务包括基本实验建模、开发将地球物理属性与现场条件联系起来的实验数据库、将实验和现场测量联系起来的数值模型和比例模型以及现场或现场测量。

One of the major difficulties with characterizing geotechnical and geological structures is the uncertainty of knowing the size, shape and material characteristics of the structure. This uncertainty results from the limited subsurface sampling of the structures using boreholes, shallow excavations, etc... which is sparse for economic and practical reasons and cannot intersect every region of the structure. This uncertainty also impacts on engineering designs for these structures such as foundations, mine openings/tunnels, hydrocarbon drill planning and reservoir design. The research described in this proposal is the core component of a broad research program investigating geophysical imaging technology to assist with remotely imaging and evaluating geological structures and in situ conditions in between subsurface sampling locations or drill intersections. Ongoing research tasks are targeted at i) imaging near surface geological structures using surface Rayleigh waves for geotechnical subsurface investigations (SSIs) and locating and mapping shallow anomalies such as abandoned mine openings, ii) developing laboratory imaging methods for geotechnical centrifuge modeling, iii) imaging reservoir pore fluid displacement associated with Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) operations, iv) real-time monitoring of drilling performance from analysis of seismic waves generated by the drill bit, and v) imaging massive sulfide mineral bodies for mineral exploration. The research tasks have components such as fundamental experimental modeling, development of experimental databases relating geophysical attributes to in situ conditions, numerical and scaling models to relate experimental and field measurements, and field or in situ measurements.