Study on Shear Velocity Profile Inversion Using an Improved High Frequency Constrained Algorithm

The formation shear-wave (S-wave)’s velocity information around a borehole is of great importance in evaluating borehole stability, reflecting fluid invasion, and selecting perforation positions. Dipole acoustic logging is an effective method for determining a formation S-wave’s velocity radial profile around the borehole. Currently, the formation S-wave’s radial-profile inversion methods are mainly based on the impacts of radial velocity changes of formations outside the borehole on the dispersion characteristics of dipole waveforms, without considering the impacts of an acoustic tool on the dispersion curves in the inversion methods. Accordingly, the inversion accuracy is greatly impacted in practical data-processing applications. In this paper, a novel inversion algorithm, which introduces equivalent-tool theory into the shear-velocity radial profile constrained-inversion method, is proposed to obtain the S-wave’s slowness radial profile. Based on the equivalent-tool theory, the acoustic tool can be modeled using two parameters, radius and elastic modulus. The tool’s impact on the dipole waveform’s dispersion is eliminated first by using the equivalent-tool theory. Then, the corrected dispersion curve is used to carry out the constrained inversion processing. The results of this processing on the simulation data and the real logging data show the validity of the proposed algorithm.