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A hybrid FLAC3D-PFC3D model to study the microseismic response of caprock
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Innovations in Applied and Theoretical Rock Mechanics Editors – Hassani, Hadjigeorgiou, Archibald
©2015 by the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy & Petroleum and ISRM, ISBN 978-1-926872-25-4
13th International Congress of Rock Mechanics ISRM13
10-13 May 2015, Montreal, Canada
A HYBRID FLAC3D-PFC3D MODEL TO STUDY THE MICROSEISMIC RESPONSE OF

CAPROCK
*C. Khazaei
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Edmonton, Canada T6G 2W2
(*Corresponding author: khazaei@ualberta.ca)
J. F. Hazzard
Itasca Consulting Group Inc.
Suite 220, 6 Adelaide Street East
Toronto, Ontario, M5C 1H6 Canada
R. J. Chalaturnyk
Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6G 2W2
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CAPROCK
C. Khazaei, J.F. Hazzard, R.J. Chalaturnyk 1

CAPROCK
ABSTRACT
Various measurement, monitoring and verification (MMV) techniques are used to ensure the
safety of operations in petroleum projects. One of these techniques is microseismic (MS) monitoring of the
caprock. A challenge in MS monitoring of caprock is that unlike projects such as tunnelling in hard rocks,
the number of recorded events are much smaller and also wide spread through the rock mass which makes
interpretation of the physical meaning behind the events very difficult.
In this paper, a numerical technique is introduced and validated for coupling a finite difference
code, FLAC3D (Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua), with a discrete element code, PFC3D (Particle
Flow Code). Then, a similar approach is adopted for modeling microseismic events in the caprock. For this
purpose, the underburden, reservoir and overburden layers are modeled by FLAC3D. A rather small
section of caprock above the reservoir is nulled in the FLAC3D model and substituted by a PFC3D
inclusion. The reservoir pressures are then applied to the reservoir section of FLAC3D. Once the FLAC3D
cycles, there will be induced pressures in the caprock due to its undrained response to the change in
pressures within the reservoir. These induced pressures are transferred to PFC3D as boundary velocities.
Then the PFC3D cycles and sends back the boundary forces to FLAC3D. This back and forth process
continues until equilibrium is reached. During this process, there will be bond breakages within the PFC3D
inclusion that can be regarded as MS events. An algorithm for recording the microseismic energies based
on a change in local strains is also implemented. The results are then compared with real data. The effect of
injection fluid temperature is also studied. No significant appearance of microseismic events was observed
due to injection of CO2 in both cases (i.e. with or without considering temperature). However, this
continuum/discontinuum approach seems promising for understanding the microseismic response of
caprock in more detail and also using the MS data for validation of geomechanical models.
KEYWORDS
Caprock integrity, Microseismic, FLAC3D-PFC3D, Acoustic Emission, CCS, Weyburn
INTRODUCTION
When it comes to microseismic monitoring of caprock, the first observation is that unlike the
projects in hard rocks such as granite, the number of recorded events is very small and the main question is
that what the physical interpretation behind them is and how they can contribute to increase the efficiency
and safety of operations. In this regard, numerical modeling can be a great asset to help answering these
questions.
Continuum modeling has the advantage of faster computations and allowing a more detailed
simulation compared to discontinuum modeling. The disadvantage, however, is the inability to directly
model microseismicity using continuum models, hence their inability to provide a link between the amount
of released acoustic energy and integrity of the caprock.
Some researchers have used distinct element models as implemented in PFC to directly model
microseismic events (Hazzard & Young, 2004; Zhao & Young, 2011). In their models, each bond breakage
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2 C. Khazaei, J.F. Hazzard, R.J. Chalaturnyk
within the PFC specimen was considered a seismic event with the possibility of clustering the events close
in time and space to result in more realistic magnitudes. The main disadvantage of discontinuum modeling
is the large computation time, which necessitates simplification of real conditions for large scale problems.
A solution is to couple continuum with discontinuum models to take advantage of the strong
features of each technique. In this approach, the large scale problem is modeled in detail by a continuum
model and a small section in which microseismic behaviour needs to be studied is modeled by a
discontinuum model. Many successful applications of this approach in 2D have been reported in literature
(Cai et al., 2007; Hazzard & Young, 2002; Saiang, 2010; Song & Hong, 2012; Souley et al., 2008; Wanne
et al., 2004; Young et al., 2005). However, since the real problem is 3-dimensional, the 2D models would
compromise some of the details such as structure, stratigraphy, and complex spatial distributions of
reservoir pressures and in-situ stresses. Therefore, 3D models seem necessary to get more realistic results,
especially in large scale problems of caprock integrity where hundreds of meters are monitored by
geophones.
COUPLING FLAC3D WITH PFC3D
In this research, the two codes FLAC3D and PFC3D have been used that are based on Finite
Difference Method and Distinct Element Method, respectively. FLAC3D uses the explicit solution scheme
and mixed discretization zoning and therefore, it is capable of modeling continuum media using various
constitutive models. On the other hand, in PFC3D, the medium is modeled as a group of rigid particles
bonded together interacting with each other and therefore, no meshing or application of constitutive models
as used in FLAC3D is required. Once a new force is applied to a PFC model, integrating twice the
Newton’s second law of motion, new displacements of the particles are calculated which in turn cause new
forces between the particles. Having these new forces and elastic stiffness of the bonds, new displacements
are calculated and this process continues until equilibrium is reached (Itasca, 1999).
Verification Problem
Since the 3D routines for coupling FLAC3D with PFC3D are not already available in PFC3D and
are being used for the first time, in order to verify their reliability, a known problem with closed form
solution (i.e., stress analysis for a cylindrical borehole in an isotropic, elastic medium) is modeled first, as
shown in Figure 1. For this purpose, as the first step, a FLAC3D model is generated and assigned an elastic
constitutive model with Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio equal to 72 GPa and 0.24, respectively. A
space at the center of model which is going to embed the PFC3D inclusion is then excavated and four
interfaces are assigned to the four sides of the excavation. Due to the geometry of this problem, the 2 walls
along the y axis are not modeled. The size of the excavation/inclusion is then transferred to PFC3D to
generate a parallel-piped discrete element model using the same robust routines as are already rigorously
tested and available in the algorithms included with the software.
In order to couple the two codes, there has to be somehow a one-to-one correspondence between
the boundaries of the FLAC3D and PFC3D models. For this purpose, despite the traditional 2D coupling
scheme where the boundary particles would be slaved to corresponding boundary grid points in the FLAC
model, the required correspondence is taken care of by the new wall logic as implemented in PFC5.0
where each wall is considered as a mesh of triangular facets. Therefore, once the PFC3D model is
generated, the walls surrounding it are deleted, the location and details of the interfaces are passed from
FLAC3D to PFC3D and the walls are re-generated around the PFC3D model. A uniform stress field of
-10 MPa, -0.5 MPa and -5 MPa along the x, y and z directions, respectively, is also installed in both
PFC3D and FLAC3D models. The boundary conditions in the FLAC3D model are set so that they
resemble an infinite medium.
It has to be noted that a PFC3D model used in this study is composed of spherical particles
bonded together with parallel bond model (Potyondy & Cundall, 2002). The PFC3D model is calibrated for
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CAPROCK
the Young’s modulus and unconfined compressive strength of 72 GPa and 175 MPa, respectively, which is
deemed to be strong enough to be anticipated an elastic behaviour.
Figure 1 – The FLAC3D-PFC3D coupled model of a circular hole. Radius of the tunnel is 5 m.
Once the walls are re-generated around the PFC3D model, coupling between the two codes is
initiated using TCP/IP protocol. Therefore, four sockets/channels are opened by both softwares either of
which responsible for trading the data related to one wall around the specimen. During the coupling,
PFC3D acts as the server/master and FLAC3D acts as the client/slave. FLAC3D cycles first and passes the
velocities to corresponding facets of PFC3D inclusion. These velocities act as the loading on the PFC3D
model and thus the PFC3D is cycled and new displacements of the balls are calculated resulting in new
forces. Since the boundary particles are in contact with the walls, the new forces within the specimen cause
new forces at the walls of the inclusion that are passed to FLAC3D to cycle. This process of sending and
receiving velocities and forces continues until equilibrium is reached.
The radial and tangential displacements in an isotropic infinite elastic medium in plane strain
condition (biaxial loading or uniform stress field far from the hole) due to a circular excavation can be
obtained theoretically by Kirsch solution (Brady & Brown, 1993). From the results shown in Figure 2, a
good agreement between the theory and numerical model can be observed that builds confidence on
reliability of the 3D coupling routines.
Figure 2 – Comparison between the tangential displacements (left) and radial displacements (right)
obtained from Kirsch solution (blue line) and numerical model (red dots)
RESERVOIR SIMULATION
Having confidence on reliability of the 3D coupling routines, a preliminary hybrid model of the
Weyburn reservoir is presented in this section.
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Geology and Microseismic Monitoring in Weyburn
The Weyburn field is located in South-East of the Saskatchewan province, Canada in the Northern
part of the Williston sedimentary basin. Hydrocarbon is produced from the Midale Beds at the average
depth of 1450 m under the ground surface. The location of the field, as well as a schematic geological
depiction of the reservoir and adjacent strata, is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3 – (Left) Location of the Weyburn field and Williston Basin. (Right) Schematic geology of the
Weyburn reservoir (Wilson & Monea, 2004)
The reservoir is usually regarded as two sections, Marly and Vuggy. The upper Marly layer is
covered by a non-reservoir “Three Fingers” layer capped by the Midale Evaporite. The Frobisher layers
under the lower Vuggy layer are non-reservoir as well (Burrowes & Gilboy, 2000). Therefore, the low
permeability Frobisher layers at the bottom plus the Midale Evaporite layer on top act as the primary seals
for the reservoir. In addition to these primary seals, on top of the Midale Evaporite, there are Ratcliffe Beds
overlain by Watrous Formation (White, 2013). The Watrous formation can be divided into lower and upper
members. The main seal usually referred to as the caprock is the Lower Watrous formation which is
impermeable shale with approximate 65 m thickness.
In order to verify the applicability of microseismic monitoring in CCS projects, an array of 8

triaxial geophones was installed by ESG contractor in a disused vertical well close to an injection well 50
m west of it in the Eastern pattern of Phase IB area. The injection of CO2 started in the injection well in
2004 and continued until 2011. A small number of MS events (~143) has been reported during 7 years of
monitoring (ESG report, 2011). Figure 4 shows the location of the MS events with the wells in that area.
Figure 4 –Eastern pattern of Phase IB area with the location of microseismic events and wells (data
after ESG report, 2011)
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Although, the MS monitoring continued even during Phase II period, the location within Phase IB
area as shown in Figure 4 and Figure 5 is the only place where microseismic events have been monitored in
Weyburn.
Reservoir Model (GEM)
The Phase IB area of the Weyburn CO2-EOR project was simulated by Alberta Innovates-
Technology Futures (AITF) using the reservoir compositional simulator GEM developed by Computer
Modeling Group (CMG) (Jafari et al., 2011). In their model, the horizontal resolution (i.e. 77 × 78 zones
approximately 50 m × 50 m each) of the original geological model was kept the same but the 113 vertical
layers were upscaled to 8 layers. These 8 layers would include 4 units in the Vuggy zone (i.e. V1, V2, V3
and V6) as well as 2 layers of the Marly zone (i.e. M1 and M3). The other two layers would include a
combination of M0 and Three Fingers units on top and a combination of Frobisher Evaporite and Upper
Frobisher Marly at the bottom both of which having no-flow boundary conditions in the GEM model
acting as the primary seals for the reservoir from a geomechanics point of view. Since relative permeability
tables and hydrocarbon PVT (pressure, volume, temperature) data were not available for the Phase IB, they
used these data from the adjacent patterns in Phase IA and did the history matching for their modeled area
until 2010. Also, since GEM is an isothermal simulator, the reservoir temperature was set constant to 63⁰C
in their model.
An ideal approach to study the geomechanical behaviour of the reservoir would be to rebuild the
stratigraphy of the GEM model in FLAC3D, import the zone pressures from GEM to FLAC3D and do a
one-way coupling between the two codes. This is the future plan of the authors. However, in this paper as
the first step, a preliminary simple geomechanical model is presented and coupled with the discontinuum
PFC3D model. The spatial domain modeled in this work is the same as the GEM model, but internal
structure is simplified.
Continuum Geomechanical Model (FLAC3D)
A simple FLAC3D model with the same horizontal resolution as the GEM model was first
generated. Weyburn field is located in a sedimentary basin with strike-slip stress regime meaning that it is
reasonable to assume the vertical stress as the principal intermediate stress and therefore, the two other
principal stresses would be in the horizontal plane. The rate of increase in in-situ stresses in Weyburn is 18,
24 and 28 kPa/m for the minimum, intermediate and maximum stresses, respectively (Jimenez Gomez,
2006). These in-situ stresses were installed in the FLAC3D model. The Mohr-Coulomb model was then
assigned to all the zones with the properties as summarized in Table 1.
Table 1 – Properties of the Weyburn reservoir used in geomechanical model

(Jimenez Gomez, 2006; Verdon, 2012). Tensile strengths are nominal.
Tensile Linear Coefficient of
Thickness φ c' Specific Heat Conductivity
E ρ Strength Thermal Expansion
Name ν
(Gpa) (kg/m3)
(m) (⁰) (MPa) (MPa) (J/kg-K) (W/m-K) (1/K)
Overburden 1260 5 0.25 2000 44 18.15 1 977 1.5 1.5e-5
Watrous 140 14 0.23 2000 44 18.15 1 977 1.5 1.5e-5
m03f1 4 24 0.34 2700 44.4 18.15 5 744 5 1.5e-5
Reservoir 26 14.5 0.31 2200 40 3.5 1 852 3 3e-5
2
FEUFM 2 24 0.34 2700 44.4 18.15 5 744 5 1.5e-5
Underburden 1428 20 0.25 2500 45 18 1 977 1.5 1.5e-5

1
A layer combined of m0 and “Three Finger” layers
2
A layer combined of “Frobisher Evaporite” and “Upper Frobisher Marly” layers
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CAPROCK
Discontinuum Geomechanical Model (PFC3D) and Microseismic Recording Routines
Microseismic events in Weyburn have been localized in a zone that extends about 420 m radially
around the monitoring well below, within and above the reservoir (see Figure 4). This zone is referred to as
the “Microseismic Zone” in this paper, and its location is shown in Figure 5. Since the focus of this
research is to study the caprock, only the section within the Watrous formation above the reservoir has
been modeled by PFC3D. Therefore, once the FLAC3D model was created and brought to elastic
equilibrium, the corresponding MS zone above the reservoir with 860 m × 840 m × 140 m dimensions was
nulled, and similar to the approach explained for the Circular Tunnel Hole, a PFC3D model was generated
with 9.2 m average ball radius (18167 particles) and calibrated for the Young’s modulus and UCS of 14
GPa and 60 MPa, similar to the corresponding Watrous zones in FLAC3D. Also, initial stresses were
installed within the model to represent the in-situ stresses.
In order to record microseismic events in a PFC model, new routines are required. A review of the
techniques on how microseismic data can be obtained from PFC is presented by Hazzard and Damjanac
(2013). One common method is based on calculating moment tensors by monitoring the change in forces
around each newly formed crack within a certain distance and time (Hazzard & Young, 2000, 2002, 2004).
Scalar moment and moment magnitude can then be calculated using the results. There is evidence that this
method overestimates the magnitudes (Young et al., 2005). However, the algorithm used in this study is
based on recording the release of strain energy within a small volume around the newly formed cracks for a
short period of time as suggested by Hazzard and Damjanac (2013). The energy magnitudes are then
calculated using Equation (1) (Hanks & Kanamori, 1979):
2
Me = log E − 3.2 (1)
3
where E is the strain energy in Joules.
In this method, a “space window” around each newly formed crack is monitored for a “time
window” during which the crack is considered “active”. If a new crack is formed within the space window
of an active crack, the two cracks are considered part of one event, the time window is reset and the space
window is expanded with regard to the new centroid of the event (that now consists of two particles).
Otherwise, the crack is assumed part of a new event. The time and space windows of 40 steps and 2
average particle diameters, respectively, were suggested by (Hazzard & Damjanac, 2013). Similar space
window as well as two time windows of 40 and 20 steps has been used in the present research. However,
determination of the time and space window can be considered part of the calibration process to get
realistic b-values. “b-value” is a commonly used parameter to look at the distribution of magnitudes as
introduced by (Gutenberg & Richter, 1954):
log N = a − bM (2)
where N is the number of events greater than the magnitude M.
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Figure 5: (Top) Coupled FLAC3D-PFC3D reservoir model. The observation well is shown by yellow.
(Right) Location of Phases IA and IB area, the GEM model and microseismic zone.
Hybrid Model
An undrained response has been assumed for the caprock. How the coupling is performed was
explained in the validation example. A feature that allows calculating “mechanical changes” to a FLAC3D
model resulting from changes in pore pressure and temperature by setting zone based pore pressure and
temperature using FISH has been used in present study. For this purpose, the isotropic fluid and thermal
models are initially set on to assign appropriate properties to the zones. Then, thermal and fluid
configurations were set off and “zonebasedtemp” and “zonebasedpp”, the two keywords available in
FLAC3D, were set on. This way, only the mechanical changes due to change in pore pressure and
temperature within the reservoir have been studied. The stress change resulting from a change in zone-
based pore pressure and temperature is calculated using the Biot coefficient as:
σ ii = σ ii − Bi × ∆P − α × ∆T (3)
where Bi is the Biot coefficient, ∆P is the change in zone pore pressure, α is equal to 3 times coefficient of
linear thermal expansion times bulk modulus of the zone and ∆T is the change in zone temperature. The
Biot coefficient is assumed to be 1. The linear thermal expansion coefficients are listed in Table 1.
Since the start of CO2-EOR in 2000, there has been an increase in the average reservoir pressure
until 2010. The average pressure at the time of discovery in 1954 was about 14 MPa. Although there were
fluctuations depending on current operations during its lifetime, the average reservoir pressure at the start
of Phase IB in 2003 was also almost 14 MPa. By the end of Phase IB in 2004, the pressure was about
17 MPa and it reached 24 MPa at the end of Phase II in 2010 (Jafari et al., 2011).
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RESULTS
The modeling has been performed in two stages, once for the Phase IB period and once for the
Phase II period; also once with and once without considering temperature changes. Therefore, the initial
pore pressure of 14 MPa was applied to all the reservoir zones; this would be the baseline for our modeling.
Then, the pressure was increased to 17 MPa, the pressure at the end of Phase IB in 2005. After this stage
the pressures was increased to 24 MPa, the pressure at the end of Phase II at 2010. Each time the
microseismic events have been recorded by PFC3D during the simulation. Similar stages were then
repeated by applying the initial temperature of 63⁰C at the baseline when the pressure was 14 MPa and
decreasing the temperature to 30⁰C simultaneously with increase in pressures to 17 MPa and 24 MPa. The
modeling was also repeated for two time windows of 40 and 20 steps.
Since the stratigraphy is not modeled and a uniform pressure has been applied to the reservoir,
also considering the fact that the number of bond breakages in a PFC model strongly depends on the
resolution of the particles, it would be unreasonable to compare the absolute location and number of the
events with real data. Therefore, the cumulative number of events at the end of each Phase has been
normalized to the overall number of events as shown in Figure 6.
The hybrid model was run first with time window equal to 20 steps and without considering
thermal effects. Thus, for Phase IB the reservoir pressure was increased from 14 MPa to 17 MPa and for
Phase II, from 17 MPa to 24 MPa. As a result, 23 events were recorded, after clustering, at the end of
Phase IB. No further increase in bond breakages was observed at the end of Phase II. The model was
repeated with time window equal to 40 steps and the number of events decreased to 19 without any
increase by the end of Phase II. Figure 6 shows a comparison between the normalized recorded events by
the model and ESG reported data as well the injection volumes. Since the modeling in this paper has been
performed only at the end of each phase, a cumulative number of real events have also been plotted in this
Figure. The dotted line shows that based on real data, about 30% of the total number of events in Weyburn,
143 events during 7 years of monitoring, appeared at the end of Phase IB and 70% appeared at the end of
Phase II while in the numerical model, all the events appeared after the first stage (i.e. at the end of Phase
IB) without any further events at the end of Phase II.
Injecting cold CO2 could results in contraction and thus thermal stress reductions in the reservoir.
This results in an increase in horizontal total stress at the lower portion of caprock to reach equilibrium and
make up for stress reduction in the reservoir. Therefore, in order to consider the effect of temperature
change, the modeling was repeated with setting temperature of the reservoir at 65⁰C at the start of injection
when the pressure was 14 MPa and decreasing the temperature to 30⁰C for the following stages where
pressure was increased to 17 and 24 MPa. However, no increase in the bond breakages was observed for
either of phases.
An advantage of using PFC is the fact that the energy release due to each bond breakage can be
captured and analyzed. A comparison between the b-value plots obtained from the model and real data is
shown in Figure 7. As can be observed in this figure, the results are not much affected by the choice of
time window. The effect of windows’ size would be more significant for a higher resolution model where
the events are observed in a dense volume. If the magnitudes smaller than -2.2 are used to calculate the b-
value, there seems to be a good agreement between the results and real data. However, the largest
magnitudes, ranging from -1 to -2, are not well modeled by PFC3D. Also, Figure 4 shows that some
clusters maybe identified in real data while in the numerical model the events were widespread. These
defects suggest that although geometrical heterogeneity is somehow modeled in the PFC inclusion by size
distribution of particles, there has been a higher level of heterogeneity such as existence of weak planes
around the wells as well as complex stratigraphy of the reservoir and its pressures that need to be taken into
account.
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Figure 6: The volumes of water and CO2 injection as well as normalized number of events obtained from
the numerical model and reported by ESG
Figure 7: b-value plots. Real data after (Verdon, 2010)
DISCUSSION
The modeling results presented in current research did not show a significant generation of
microseismic activity due to the injection of CO2 even for the case where thermal effects of cold CO2 were
taken into account. Although this model is very preliminary, the results are in agreement with previous
studies conducted on Weyburn. Using a 2D finite element code, ELFEN, Verdon et al., (2013) used the
concept of "fracture potential" which represents the distance between the current state of stress and the
Mohr-Coulomb line to study the injection-induced microseismicity in Weyburn. They did not observe any
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microseismic data using laboratory parameters and thus reduced the Young’s modulus of the reservoir to
0.5 GPa and concluded that a softer reservoir would be the case to result in microseismic data as reported
for Weyburn. In another study, they used 3D coupling between the GEM model, same as the one
introduced in the present study, and ELFEN (Verdon et al., 2012). They tested an elastic model and a
plastic model and concluded that a plastic model would provide better results with regard to decrease in
fracture potential in high pore pressure area with increase in stress.
However, there seems to be another possibility to account for the absence of microseismic data
in a soft sedimentary caprock. In the microseismic routines used in present research, the emissions are the
result of bond breakages in a compressive stress regime. This mechanism is usually what is expected from
intact rocks (Khazaei et al., 2015a; Martin & Chandler, 1994). A large scale shale rock mass is very likely
to include weak planes in various scales. The mechanism behind MS events along weak planes is known as
“stick-slip”, a jerky localized on and off slip process along heterogeneous patches on weak planes. These
stick-slip induced emissions could be too small or “aseismic” to be felt by geophones or they could be very
large depending on the stress conditions of the patch, its size and frictional properties. A new approach for
modeling slip induced emission was introduced by (Khazaei et al., 2015b). Perhaps, combining a similar
hybrid model as presented in this study with a PFC model populated with a discrete fracture network
(DFN) and implementing routines for recording the slip induced emissions would yield in more realistic
numerical results.
Also, temperature can have two effects on the caprock: short term and long term. The short term
effect is due to thermal strains in the caprock layers right above the reservoir while the upper parts of the
caprock have not yet experienced the change in temperature. The short term effect was modeled in the
present research. However, conceptually due to heat transfer, the caprock and reservoir will eventually
become isothermal at a temperature between the initial temperature and temperature of the injected CO2.
Vilarrasa et al., (2014) reported that long term effect of cold CO2 injection did not jeopardize the caprock
integrity for normal and reverse faulting regimes studied by them.
CONCLUSIONS
Applicability of a coupled FLAC3D-PFC3D model to study the effect of various parameters on

microseismic response of caprock is shown in this paper. The approach was first validated using a known
example with closed form solution and then applied to a simple large scale model of Weyburn reservoir.
The results showed a lack of significant crack induced microseismic events using a technique to monitor
the change in local strain around each newly formed crack. The modeling results were in agreement with
our previous knowledge of the lack of significant microseismic events in Weyburn.
However, there are several improvements that can be made into this model such as using a model
with finer particles, replicating the stratigraphy, importing the real time reservoir pressures from the
reservoir simulator and running the model for smaller reservoir timesteps. Also, as mentioned in the
discussion section, modeling the slip induced emissions along pre-existing weak planes for a large scale
sedimentary caprock seems a better approach for studying the microseismic events.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. Sacha Emam from Itasca for his valuable assistance with
PFC5.0 and coupling routines.
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A hybrid FLAC3D-PFC3D model to study the microseismic response of caprock

Conference Paper · May 2015

Cyrus Khazaei Jim Hazzard

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A HYBRID FLAC3D-PFC3D MODEL TO STUDY THE MICROSEISMIC RESPONSE OF

A HYBRID FLAC3D-PFC3D MODEL TO STUDY THE MICROSEISMIC RESPONSE OF

Caprock integrity, Microseismic, FLAC3D-PFC3D, Acoustic Emission, CCS, Weyburn

COUPLING FLAC3D WITH PFC3D

Geology and Microseismic Monitoring in Weyburn

In order to verify the applicability of microseismic monitoring in CCS projects, an array of 8

Reservoir Model (GEM)

Continuum Geomechanical Model (FLAC3D)

Table 1 – Properties of the Weyburn reservoir used in geomechanical model

Overburden 1260 5 0.25 2000 44 18.15 1 977 1.5 1.5e-5

Watrous 140 14 0.23 2000 44 18.15 1 977 1.5 1.5e-5

m03f1 4 24 0.34 2700 44.4 18.15 5 744 5 1.5e-5

Reservoir 26 14.5 0.31 2200 40 3.5 1 852 3 3e-5

Underburden 1428 20 0.25 2500 45 18 1 977 1.5 1.5e-5

Discontinuum Geomechanical Model (PFC3D) and Microseismic Recording Routines

where E is the strain energy in Joules.

where N is the number of events greater than the magnitude M.

Figure 7: b-value plots. Real data after (Verdon, 2010)

Applicability of a coupled FLAC3D-PFC3D model to study the effect of various parameters on

ESG Weyburn Microseismic Progress Report. (2011).

Itasca, C. G. (1999). PFC 3D-User manual. Itasca Consulting Group, Minneapolis.

Jimenez Gomez, J. . (2006). Geomechanical performance assessment of CO2—EOR geological storage

Verdon, J. P. (2012). Microseismic Monitoring and Geomechanical Modelling of CO2 Storage in

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