Numerical and physical simulations of array laterolog in deviated anisotropic formation

Due to the tremendous amount of high-resolution measurement information,array laterolog is widely used in evaluations of deviated anisotropic reservoirs.However,the precision of a complementary numerical simulation should be improved as high as the core of fine-scale reservoir evaluation.Therefore,the 3D finite element method(3D-FEM)is presented to simulate the array laterolog responses.Notably,a downscaled physical simulation system is introduced to validate and calibrate the precision of the 3D-FEM.First,the size of the downscaled system is determined by COMSOL.Then,the surrounding and investigated beds are represented by a sodium chloride solution and planks soaked in solution,respectively.Finally,a half-space measurement scheme is presented to improve the experimental efficiency.Moreover,the corresponding sensitivity function and separation factor are established to analyze the effects of the formation anisotro py and dipping angle on the array laterolog responses.The numerical and experimental results indicate that the half-space method is practical,and the mean relative error between the numerical and experimental results is less than 5%,which indicates that the numerical simulation is accurate.With the proposed approach,the reversal angle of array laterolog response curves in anisotropic formations can be observed,and this range is determined to be 50°-62°.