Stress Distribution in an Anticline: a Numerical Approach

It is general experience of geoscientists that all the rocks are affected at all scales by fault and fracture systems due to the application of stress fields different in origins and timing.
A fractured reservoir is a kind of anisotropic reservoir where the faults/fractures play the main role or storage or as barrier on the flow of the contained fluids or gas.
In the evaluation and development of a fractured reservoir is critical task to define the fracture system/location.  In this project, the numerical modeling (Finite Element Method) was successfully applied to investigate the relationships between the state of stress and the fracture systems distribution in the Mohr-Coulomb fracture law case.
The experimental procedure was: a) Construct a balanced geological cross-section of the host structure (geological model); b) Mechanically characterize each lithologic unit; c) Discretize (meshing) the model.
To the discretized model was applied a stress field (regional stress field and, in the range of elastic deformation, the principal stress components module and orientation in each point of the mesh were calculated.
A better knowledge of these processes will improve oil field performances, dynamic reservoir modeling, recovery, and stimulation planning.