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The article contains the description of developed mathematical models of fractures which can be used for numerical solution of exploration seismology problems with use of grid-characteristic method on unstructured triangular and tetrahedral meshes. The base of developed models is the concept of infinitely thin fracture. This fracture is represented by contact boundary. Such approach significantly reduces the consumption of computer resources by the absence of the mesh definition inside of fracture necessity. By the other side it lets state the fracture discretely in integration domain, therefore one can observe qualitative new effects which are not available to observe by use of effective models of fractures, actively used in computational seismic.

The main target in the development of models have been getting the most accurate result. Developed models thet can receive the response close to the actual response of the existing fracture in geological environment. We considered fluid-filled fractures, glued and partially glued fractures, and also fractures with dynamical friction force. Fracture behavior determinated by the nature of condition on the border.

Empty fracture was represented as free boundary condition. This condition give us opportunity for total reflection of wave fronts from fracture. Fluid-filling provided the condition for sliding on the border. Under this condition, there was a passage of longitudinal and total reflection of converted waves. For the real fractures, which has unequal distance between the borders has been proposed the model of partially glued fracture. At different points of the fracture's boundary were sat different conditions. Almost the same effect is achieved by using a fracture model of dynamic friction condition. But its disadvantage is the inabillity to specify the proportion of fracture's glued area due to the friction factor can take values from zero to infinity. The model of partially glued fracture is devoid of this disadvantage.

The paper reviews the existing approaches to calculating the destruction of solids. The main attention is paid to algorithms using a unified approach to the calculation of deformation both for nondestructive and for the destroyed states of the material. The thermodynamic derivation of the unified rheological relationships taking into account the elastic, viscous and plastic properties of materials and describing the loss of the deformation resistance ability with the accumulation of microdamages is presented. It is shown that the mathematical model under consideration provides a continuous dependence of the solution on input parameters (parameters of the material medium, initial and boundary conditions, discretization parameters) with softening of the material.

Explicit and implicit non-matrix algorithms for calculating the evolution of deformation and fracture development are presented. Non-explicit schemes are implemented using iterations of the conjugate gradient method, with the calculation of each iteration exactly coinciding with the calculation of the time step for two-layer explicit schemes. So, the solution algorithms are very simple.

The results of solving typical problems of destruction of solid deformable bodies for slow (quasistatic) and fast (dynamic) deformation processes are presented. Based on the experience of calculations, recommendations are given for modeling the processes of destruction and ensuring the reliability of numerical solutions.

Seismic survey process is the common method of prospecting and exploration of deposits: oil and natural gas. Invented at the beginning of the XX century, it has received significant development and is currently used by almost all service oil companies. Its main advantages are the acceptable cost of fieldwork (in comparison with drilling wells) and the accuracy of estimating the characteristics of the subsurface area. However, with the discovery of non-traditional deposits (for example, the Arctic shelf, the Bazhenov Formation), the task of improving existing and creating new seismic data processing technologies became important. Significant development in this direction is possible with the use of numerical simulation of the propagation of seismic waves in realistic models of the geological medium, since it is possible to specify an arbitrary internal structure of the medium with subsequent evaluation of the synthetic signal-response.

The present work is devoted to the study of spatial dynamic processes occurring in geological medium containing fractured inclusions in the process of seismic exploration. The authors constructed a three-dimensional model of a layered massif containing a layer of fluid-saturated cracks, which makes it possible to estimate the signal-response when the structure of the inhomogeneous inclusion is varied. To describe physical processes, we use a system of equations for a linearly elastic body in partial derivatives of the second order, which is solved numerically by a grid-characteristic method on hexahedral grid. In this case, the crack planes are identified at the stage of constructing the grid, and further an additional correction is used to ensure a correct seismic response for the model parameters typical for geological media.

In the paper, three-component area seismograms with a common explosion point were obtained. On their basis, the effect of the structure of a fractured medium on the anisotropy of the seismic response recorded on the day surface at a different distance from the source was estimated. It is established that the kinematic characteristics of the signal remain constant, while the dynamic characteristics for ordered and disordered models can differ by tens of percents.

The mathematical model, finite-difference schemes and algorithms for computation of transient thermoand hydrodynamic processes involved in commissioning the unified system including the oil producing well, electrical submersible pump and fractured-porous reservoir with bottom water are developed. These models are implemented in the computer package to simulate transient processes with simultaneous visualization of their results along with computations. An important feature of the package Oil-RWP is its interaction with the special external program GCS which simulates the work of the surface electric control station and data exchange between these two programs. The package Oil-RWP sends telemetry data and current parameters of the operating submersible unit to the program module GCS (direct coupling). The station controller analyzes incoming data and generates the required control parameters for the submersible pump. These parameters are sent to Oil-RWP (feedback). Such an approach allows us to consider the developed software as the “Intellectual Well System”.

Some principal results of the simulations can be briefly presented as follows. The transient time between inaction and quasi-steady operation of the producing well depends on the well stream watering, filtration and capacitive parameters of oil reservoir, physical-chemical properties of phases and technical characteristics of the submersible unit. For the large time solution of the nonstationary equations governing the nonsteady processes is practically identical to the inverse quasi-stationary problem solution with the same initial data. The developed software package is an effective tool for analysis, forecast and optimization of the exploiting parameters of the unified oil-producing complex during its commissioning into the operating regime.

In real problems of exploration seismology we deal with a heterogeneity of the nature of elastic waves interaction with the surface of a fracture by the propagation through it. The fracture is a complex heterogeneous structure. In some locations the surfaces of fractures are placed some distance apart and are separated by filling fluid or emptiness, in some places we can observe the gluing of surfaces, when under the action of pressure forces the fracture surfaces are closely adjoined to each other. In addition, fractures can be classified by the nature of saturation: fluid or gas. Obviously, for such a large variety in the structure of fractures, one cannot use only one model that satisfies all cases.

This article is concerned with description of developed mathematical fracture models which can be used for numerical solution of exploration seismology problems using the grid-characteristic method on unstructured triangular (in 2D-case) and tetrahedral (in 3D-case) meshes. The basis of the developed models is the concept of an infinitely thin fracture, whose aperture does not influence the wave processes in the fracture area. These fractures are represented by bound areas and contact boundaries with different conditions on contact and boundary surfaces. Such an approach significantly reduces the consumption of computer resources since there is no need to define the mesh inside the fracture. On the other side, it allows the fractures to be given discretely in the integration domain, therefore, one can observe qualitatively new effects, such as formation of diffractive waves and multiphase wave front due to multiple reflections between the surfaces of neighbor fractures, which cannot be observed by using effective fracture models actively used in computational seismology.

The computational modeling of seismic waves propagation through layers of mesofractures was produced using developed fracture models. The results were compared with the results of physical modeling in problems in the same statements.