3DFD Simulation of Asymmetric Wave Field by Side-wall Acoustic Tool in Open and Cased Wells

1. Introduction Side-wall acoustic logging tools, such as the Segmented Bond Tool (SBT) from Baker Atlas and the tools for open hole measurements, utilize acoustic transducers mounted on six pads to make compensated acoustic velocity and attenuation measurements which are not affected by mud weight, gas cut, fast formation effects, casing surface conditions or reasonable tool de- centralizing. Studies on the wave fields generated by these tools are very important to tool design and data int…

3DFD Simulation of Asymmetric Wave Field by Side-wall Acoustic Tool in Open and Cased Wells

We developed a parallelized scheme of 3D finite difference (3DFD) with non-uniform staggered grid to simulate the eccentric borehole acoustic field with side-wall acoustic logging tools in open and cased wells. Higher accuracy and lower computation cost were achieved with this scheme for modeling such an asymmetric wave field generated by a high frequency source near or on the borehole wall. We also modeled the cases with and without considering the effects of the tool body. The simulation results demonstrated that the logging tool body would attenuate the direct waves but have only little influence on the interface waves in such a borehole condition. The effects of the tool body on the wave field were significant only when the contrast of the elastic properties between tool body and borehole fluid was large.