Patent ID: 8423337

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for the automated modeling of a three-dimensional geomechanical system, comprising: defining physical boundaries for the geomechanical system; acquiring subsurface data and mechanical properties of rock formations within the physical boundaries; acquiring one or more reservoir characteristics from production activities within the physical boundaries; running a pre-processor at a first time related to the production activities to create a finite element system mesh representing the geomechanical system, the mesh defining a plurality of elements having system nodes representing points in space, with each element being populated with the mechanical properties, the one or more acquired reservoir characteristics, and the subsurface data; running a geomechanical simulation model for the geomechanical system at each of a first time and another time to simulate the effects of changes in stress on one or more modeled reservoir characteristics in the geomechanical system; determining from the simulation model, system node displacement, traction changes, and stress changes for each element within the system from the first time to the another time within the system mesh; identifying a subset system of the geomechanical system for modeling analysis at high mesh resolution and defining host elements of the geomechanical system that comprise the subset system; running a pre-processor over the subset system host elements to create a high resolution finite element system mesh representing the subset system, the high resolution mesh defining a plurality of high resolution elements having high resolution system nodes representing points in space with each high resolution element being populated with the mechanical properties, the acquired one or more reservoir characteristics, and the subsurface data; transferring by interpolation, the determined system node displacement, the traction changes, and the stress changes from the determined results of the geomechanical system simulation model to the high resolution subset system nodes; and running a geomechanical simulation model for the subset system at high resolution, at each of a first time and another time to simulate the effects of changes in stress on one or more modeled reservoir characteristics in the subset system.