Electric potential source localization reveals a borehole leak during hydraulic fracturing

ABSTRACTA laboratory experiment was performed to see if passively recorded electric signals can be inverted to retrieve the position of fluid leakages along a well during an attempt to hydraulically fracture a porous block in the laboratory. The cubic block was instrumented with 32 nonpolarizing sintered Ag/AgCl electrodes. During the test, several events were detected corresponding to fluid leakoff along the seal of the well. Each event showed a quick burst in the electric field followed by an exponential-type relaxation of the potential distribution over time. The occurrence of these “electric” events was always correlated with a burst in the acoustic emissions and a change in the fluid pressure. These self-potential data were inverted in two steps: (1) using a deterministic least-square algorithm with focusing to retrieve the position of the source current density in the block for a given snapshot in the electric potential distribution and (2) using a genetic algorithm to refine the position of the sou...

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