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Procedia Environmental Sciences 12 (2012) 576 – 582

2011 International Conference on Environmental Science and Engineering

(ICESE 2011)
A New Calculating Method of the Curvature to Predicting the Reservoir Fractures
Chonghui Suoa, Shimi Penga, Suoliang Changa, Rutai Duana,Guangming Wangb
a
College of Geosciences,China University of Petroleum
ChangPing, Beijing, 102249, China,suochonghui@163.com
b
Liaohe Oilfield Company,PetroChina,Panjin, LiaoNing Province,124010, China,ice3393@sina.com

Abstract

Fracture density and Fracture orientation have some relationship with the curvature of structure surface. Generally,
the greater the curvature value is, the more fractures develop. So it is an important method to predict the distribution
of natural fractures by using the structural surface curvature. First, we obtain the grid data of altitude data from the
seismic structure contour map, and make a fitting surface in each adjacent grid nodes. Then we deduce the formula to
calculate the curvature in any direction from the fitting surface,. It is an improved calculating method which is
different from using the simplified formula to obtain the maximum principal curvature and Gaussian curvature as
before. In this way, we can predict the fracture zone through curvature analysis. Through analyzing the curvature of
Qikou18-1 oil field and the fracture zone predicted by using this method, the results show that the curvature has a
good relationship with the fractures distribution.

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Keywords:curvature; fracture; grid; structure contour map.

1.Introduction

Reservoir fractures play an important role in controlling the oil and gas seepage. Fractures not only
connect the poros and improve the permeability, but also are better reservoirs. However, they are not easy
been detected by usual methods. Though we can investigate the fractures’ distribution from the outcrop,
interpret fractures’ dip and density from well logs, and so on, we still have difficulties in predicting the
reservoir fractures subsurface. Because it is not easy for us to detect the reservoir fractures directly, we
have to study them in other way. As we know that there is some relationship between the curvature of
structure map and the fractures, we can predict the fractures distribution from the curvature.
Curvature is a parameter to describe the bending degree of curve or surface. As for the sedimentary
structures, which mostly were horizontal tectonic in the primary stage when it beginning to deposit. With
the movement of structure and under the outside enforce, the horizontal tectonic will be changed and

1878-0296 © 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of National University of Singapore.
doi:10.1016/j.proenv.2012.01.320
 Chonghui Suo et al. / Procedia Environmental Sciences 12 (2012) 576 – 582 577

reshaped. Along the maximum principal stress direction, it will be easily bended and then form cracks,
where is enrich in the fractures [4,5]. For example, the turning points on the top of anticlines, the both sides
of faults and so on, suffering more the geology-stress and can crack the rock. Not only do curvatures can
indicate the fractures distribution, but also they have some other implications. Recently, some researchers
tried to estimate the reservoir porosity and permeability via the curvature analysis [6]. Also someone else
thinks that this method has a prospect in looking for the micro-faults in coal seam [1].

2.Mathematical definition of curvature and its geological significance

In the Cartesian system of coordinates XOY showing in the Fig1, the curvature of M point in a curve
is the ratio of Ϧa and Ϧs. Where the Ϧa is the rotation angle of tangent from M to M’ points, Ϧs is the
arc length between M and M’ points. This can be described by the mathematic formula 1.
'a ΰ1˅
K lim
's o 0 ' s

From the above formula, we can conclude the formula 2 [15].

d2y
dx 2 ΰ2˅
K 3
ª § dy ·2 º 2
«1  ¨ ¸ »
«¬ © dx ¹ »¼

Fig.1 Curvature diagram.

However, there have millions of curves through a point in a surface. And for each of them, it has a
curvature respectively. In all of them, the maximum curvature is named Kmax (the maximum principal
curvature), the minimum curvature is called Kmin (the minimum principal curvature), and Kg (Gaussian
curvature) is Kmin multiplied by Kmax.
K g K max ˜ K min ΰ3˅
From the formula 1, we can see that K can be a positive or negative value if ignoring the absolute
value according to the value of Ϧa. In many papers, it had been indicated that K has a relationship with
the geology structure [14,15]. While if it is an anticline, K<0, for the syncline, K>0, and a plane surface
indicates that K=0. However, due to the maximum principal curvature is only related to the biggest
bending, here we only care about the absolute value of curvature in this paper.
Just as the Fig2 showing, the direction of maximum principal curvature is consisted with the
maximum principal stress. When we think about the top structure surface, there should be more fractures
in anticline part than in the syncline. That’s because the structure stress that the rocks suffering are
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different in the anticline from syncline. The former suffering tension force that make rock cracks, while
the latter is suffer compress force that can only make rock more compactly. On the contrary, if the
surface is at the bottom of the reservoir, the fractures may be more abundant in syncline parts. So, when
we analyze the curvature of a structure surface, we must know what the surface we are talking about first.

3.Methods to calculating the curvature

There are many methods to calculate a point curvature in a structure surface. Some methods directly
calculate the surface curvature from the grid nodes [13], while others get the curvature from the fitting
surface [3,4]. Cao Runrong (2008) had sum up 5 methods in his paper. However, most of them are
simplification [11]. Here we make some improvement in the calculation in this paper. We first fit a
surface by using the adjacent grid nodes, and then calculate the right directional curvature that we need
from the fitting surface. Hence, we can get the maximum, minimum and Gaussian curvature from the
results.

3.1.Fitting surface in curvature calculation

Fitting surface is the first step to get the surface curvature. First, we get a reservoir structure surface
from a seismic interpretation, and divide it with grids along X and Y directions. From the grids, it is easy
to know the elevation of each node on the structure surface (Fig.3). For each grid node, we can fit a
surface about z(x, y) by using its adjacent 3ͪ3 grid nodes (Formula 4), and calculate the fitting surface
curvature about the center grid node, Kij. Here we think Kij as the curvature of each grid node of Zij.
Finally, we can get curvature of each grid node on the structure surface.
With the fitting surface from 3ͪ3 grid nodes, it can reflect the real structure surface. Fig4 is the fitting
surfaces of hypothetic data. From which we can see that anticline, syncline, dome, and overturned
anticline are all fitting well. So it is reasonable to calculate the curvature from the fitting surface with 3ͪ3
grid nodes.
The fitting surface can be expressed as Formula 4:
z a1 x3  a2 y 3  a3 x 2 y  a4 xy 2  a5 xy
 a6 x 2  a7 y 2  a8 x  a9 y  a10 ΰ4˅
Where, a1 , a2 ˜˜˜, a10 are the coefficients of polynomials for fitting the structure surface. According to the
3ͪ3 adjacent grid nodes and their elevation, we can calculate the coefficients from Formula 4.

Fig.2 Fractures are riched in top structure surface of the anticline and the bottom structure surface of syncline.
 Chonghui Suo et al. / Procedia Environmental Sciences 12 (2012) 576 – 582 579

Fig.3 Grid nodes in structure surface Fig.4 Fitting surfaces using grid nodes data.
(a) anticline (b) syncline (c) dome (d) overturned anticline

3.2. Calculate the curvature of the fitting surface

As for the Cartesian system of coordinates XOY showing in the Fig5, if it turned around ș degrees on
the origin O, we will get another Cartesian system of coordinates UOV. And the coordinates of M point
are (x0, y0) and (u0, v0) respectively. The (x, y) and (u, v) has the relationship that:
x u cosT  v sin T (5˅
y u sin T  v cos T (6˅
When substituting Equation 5 and 6 into Equation 4, we can translate the surface function z(x, y) to
z(u, v). Here if the variable v=0, the surface function z(u, v) is becoming a curve along the U axis. And
the curvature of z(u, 0) is reflected the surface curvature along the U axis. We take the first and second
derivative of z(u, 0), and get the formula 7 and 8 as below:
wz
3u 2 a1 cos3 T  3u 2 a2 sin 3 T  3u 2 a3 sin T cos 2 T  3u 2 a4 sin 2 T cos T 
wu
2a5u sin T cos T  2 a6u cos 2 T  2a7 u sin 2 T  a8 cos T  a9 sin T (7)
w2 z 2 2 (8)
6ua1 cos3 T  6ua2 sin 3 T  6ua3 sin T cos 2 T  6ua4 sin 2 T cos T  2a5 sin T cos T  2a6 cos T  2a7 sin T
wu 2
In the two formulas above, if variable u=0, it is the partial derivative along the U axis of z(u, v) at the
(0,0) point. Then we can get formulas 9 and 10:
wz (9)
a cos T  a sin T
8 9
wu
w2 z (10)
2a5 sin T cos T  2a6 cos 2 T  2a7 sin 2 T
wu 2
Finally, substituting the formula 9 and 10 into formula 2, we can conclude the surface curvature of
z(x,y) along Ӱ direction at point of z(0,0):
z '' a5 sin 2T  2a6 cos 2 T  2a7 sin 2 T (11)
K 3 3

1   z ' 
2 2
ª1   a8 cos T  a9 sin T 2 º 2
¬ ¼
Here, -Ӹ/2İӰ<Ӹ/2, especially, if Ӱ=0, K is the surface curvature in EW direction; if Ӱ=-Ӹ/2 or
Ӹ/2, it is in NS direction; We can calculate any directional curve curvature of the fitting surface only by
changing the Ӱ according to the formula 11. Among all the curvatures, the maximum of the absolute
value is resulting in the maximum principal curvature. The value in the direction which is perpendicular
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to the maximum principal curvature is the minimum principal curvature. And the maximum principal
curvature and the maximum principal stress have the same direction.
If Ӱ belongs to (  S ,  S  dT , ˜˜˜,  S  idT , ˜˜˜,  S  ndT < S αrespectively, and dӰ is the step length, we can
2 2 2 2 2
calculate the corresponding K value according to the formula 11. Then
The maximum principal curvature: Kmax=maxΰ K1 , K 2 , ˜˜˜, Ki , ˜˜˜, K n α;
The minimum principal curvature: Kmin=Ki ΰ the curvature of direction perpendicular to the
KmaxαΙ
Gaussian curvatureΚ K g K max ˜ K min

4.Example of predicting the fractures’ distribution using the curvature

Fig6 shows a structure contour map of Qikou18-1 oil field. There are four wells in this area, two of
which are oil-wells (QK18-1, P3), and the others are injection wells (P1, P5). The depositional setting of
this area is interpreted as a Fan-delta environment. And the lithofacies here are mainly fine-grained
sandstone and siltstone. It is an anticline as the major structure, while there is a secondary syncline
tectonic in the southwest area. We divide the contour map into grids with 50mͪ50m step length, and then
deduce the maximum principal curvature and Gaussian curvature map by the methods mentioned before
(Fig7, Fig8). Here, the unit of curvature value is 10-6/m.

DŽ
Fig.6 Structure contour map and direction of fractures. Fig.7 Overprinting of Gaussian curvature
on the structure contour map (grid interval is 50m).
From the Fig7 and Fig8, it’s not difficult to see that they have the same trend of curvature. The
structure contour is the top interface of reservoir, so we can ignore the southwest area, for it is exposed to
compressional force here and had a bad condition for forming fractures. Where we have interest in is the
area with high curvature in the anticline. From the Fig8, we can see that all the four wells are in high
curvature area and they merge to one integral zone. For the relationship between the fractures zone and
high-curvature, it is possible to think the high curvature zone as fractures distribution zone. And the
curvature analysis result is well matched on the wells location.
 Chonghui Suo et al. / Procedia Environmental Sciences 12 (2012) 576 – 582 581

Fig.8 Overprinting of maximum principal curvature on the structure contour map(grid interval is 50m).

5.Conclusion

As a reservoir fractures predicting method, structure surface curvature is the response of geology-
stress and structure shape, and the analysis has its reasonable. Finally, we can conclude the followings
consequence:
y The bigger curvature means that are more abundant the fractures. So the value of curvature is
indication of density of fractures.
y Compared with the other curvature calculating methods, the one in this paper not only can get the
maximum principal curvature, the minimum principal curvature and Gaussian curvature, but also
get the direction of the fractures at the same time.
y Before the prediction of fractures distribution by this method, we should notice that not all the
structure interfaces are appropriate to analyze with the curvature method. It’s only effective for the
sedimentary structures which mostly were horizontal tectonic in the primary stage when they
beginning to deposit. Although this method has its limitation, it provides us a method to study the
fractures.

Acknowledgment

A majority of the work has been finished in Shanxi Shandi Geophy-Tech Co.,Ltd. The authors would
like to thank them for supporting the research.
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