Seismic Risk Assessment For Geothermal Projects: With The Creation Of A Physical Screening Model

Geothermal energy can be a great solution for the downscaling fossil fuel society, but it can potentially lead to seismic hazards. A doublet system, with a cold water injection well and a hot water production well, alters the stress situation in the subsurface, which can result in (micro)fracturing and fault reactivation. Even in water filled...

Direct geomechanical inversion from geodetic data: A new method for a regularised direct inversion to geomechanical parameters using measurements from optical leveling campaigns

Subsidence of the ground surface, caused by hydrocarbon production, compaction of soft ground layers or other subsidence causes, is a timely topic in the Netherlands. Geodetic measurements of the surface can help us improve our knowledge of the subsurface; this process is called geomechanical inversion. Improved knowledge on the subsurface is...

Application of an inverse analysis using the Ensemble Kalman Filter method to a deep excavation case: with validation of constitutive soil models

Displacement control is of utmost importance in deep excavation design and is usually based on numerical modelling, e.g. Finite Element Method (FEM). Numerical methods tend to be more conservative when analysing soil behaviour during deep excavation, whereas for practical and economic reasons this is not favoured. The inverse analysis allows for...

Soil Constitutive Modelling Using Neural Networks

Constitutive models are one of the main building blocks of the Finite Element Analysis that nowadays is used in almost every geotechnical engineering project. Thus, finding realistic stress-strain behaviour models has been one of the main fields of research in Geotechnical Engineering. However, constitutive equations have become increasingly...

Data assimilation, Geomechanical parameter estimation in the Groningen hydrocarbon reservoir from PS-InSAR measurements with a particle filter

This thesis explores the usage of the particle filter as a data assimilation technique to estimate subsurface processes, such as reservoir volume change from space-geodetic PS-InSAR surface measurements. The specific research area is Groningen, where subsidence is induced by hydrocarbon and salt production.<br/>The satellite radar PS-InSAR...

Initiation of Fault Reactivation: New Insights into the Effect of Differential Compaction

The production and injection of fluids from and in reservoirs leads to changes in the in-situ stress in the subsurface. This can cause reservoir compaction, subsidence, fault reactivation and / or seismicity. As these effects may greatly influence society it is of importance to find accurate methods to describe them so they can be predicted or...

Surface heave by steam injection and subsidence by aquifer production- a 2D modeling study with Plaxis

Steam injection is an EOR method, which is mostly used for heavy oil production. This viable method is based on increasing the pore pressure in the reservoir and reducing the viscosity of the heavy oil. In particular cases, the increase in pore pressure and thermal expansion related to the steam injection leads to surface deformation – heave....

Determination of Relevant Spatial Scale in Reservoir Simulation

Under-sampling of the subsurface combined with scale differences in observations causes the estimation of geological parameters to be an ill-posed problem. As a result, only a subset of theoretically possible models can truly depict the reality. In reservoir modeling, we capture complexity and heterogeneity by representing the solution space...

QUInSAR: Temporal Parameter and Ambiguity Estimation Using Recursive Least-Squares: A Methodology for Persistent Scatterer Interferometry

Parameter and ambiguity estimation in the temporal domain, for arcs of differential phase observations between two persistent scatterers (PS), is a critical part in Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI). Deformation models, used as constraint in the parameter estimation, often do not capture the full extent of the deformation behaviour. This...