Inverse Problems in geomechanics

Reconstruction of the in-situ stresses from the knowledge of the geological structure, material properties and the partial measurements of the stress tensor at a given number of points in the domain is a typical inverse problem which is of great practical relevance.  We have been developing some algorithms on this problem and have a number of ideas to further improve the current state of the art.

Interferometry Satellite Aperture Radar (InSAR) provide accurate measurements of surface deformation over large area.  InSAR data provides an indirect way to monitor sub-surface pore-pressure. It requires the solution of an ill-posed problem that can be regularized in a number of ways depending on the other type of data available. Simple to complex forward models can be used in a Bayesian framework to better understand sub-surface reservoir changes.

Contact us if you are interested in these projects.

Surface Deformation map from InSARReconstructed measurements from pore-pressure inversion

An example of InSAR surface deformation data (left) and reconstructed surface deformation from inversion for harmonic moments of the sub-surface pore-pressure change field (right).