Patent ID: 8548782

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for modeling deformation in subsurface strata within a geomechanical system, comprising: defining physical boundaries for the geomechanical system; acquiring one or more mechanical properties of the subsurface strata within the physical boundaries; acquiring one or more thermal properties of the subsurface strata within the physical boundaries; creating a finite element mesh representing the geomechanical system, the mesh defining a plurality of elements having system nodes representing points in space, each node having potential displacement in more than one direction, and each element being populated with at least one of the mechanical properties and the thermal properties; providing a computer-implemented finite element analysis program for the finite element mesh, the program solving for in situ stress at selected nodes; running the finite element analysis program a first time to acquire in situ stress values within the geomechanical system at selected nodes at an initial time, thereby initializing a geostatic condition of the geomechanical system; running the finite element analysis program a second time to acquire in situ stress values within the geomechanical system at selected nodes at a subsequent time in response to changes in at least one of the mechanical or thermal properties in the geomechanical system; determining from the finite element analysis program, system node displacement, traction changes, and stress changes for each element within the system from the first time to the subsequent 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 at least one of the mechanical properties and thermal properties; 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 the subsequent time to simulate the effects of changes in stress on one or more modeled properties within the subset system.