A simplified down-hole method for monitoring an engineered hydraulic barrier using electrical resistivity tomography
Date
2018-03-15
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Abstract
In the Athabasca Oil sands in Northern Alberta one of the major risks to mining operations is water infiltration from a saline aquifer at the base of the oil sands. One method of preventing infiltration is by the use of a freeze wall surrounding the mine pit. Monitoring a freeze wall of this scale can be difficult because of the scale of oil sands mining pits. This thesis explores the use of single-borehole electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) as a method of monitoring the entire freeze wall for leaks, which takes advantage of the freeze wall infrastructure to minimize monitoring costs. The study was conducted by modelling a freeze wall breach, and then simulating an ERT data series from electrode arrays attached to the outside of the freeze pipes that were used to create the freeze wall. By using the freeze pipes for monitoring, the entire wall can be monitored while eliminating the need to drill additional wells for monitoring. The resulting simulated data were inverted using a simplified parameterized inversion scheme and were analyzed for their potential to show a leak in the freeze wall. The results of the study indicated that the use of single-borehole ERT can be used to monitor for leaks along the entire freeze wall, and the inverted models can be used to automate a corrective action to fix the freeze wall at a leak location. The results also indicated that determining the volume of saline water that has leaked is not possible using this simplified inversion scheme.
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Perrin, R. (2018). A simplified down-hole method for monitoring an engineered hydraulic barrier using electrical resistivity tomography (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/31739