Measurement of P-wave Attenuation of Heavy Oil for Viscoelastic Modeling

Ultrasonic P-wave velocity and attenuation measurements for Canadian heavy oil are conducted in wide temperature range. In the attenuation measurement we use a sweep-type wave and the continuous wavelet transform to obtain stable and broad amplitude spectrum, resulting in that attenuation data with high consistency among three experiments are successfully obtained. The estimated attenuation shows the maximum at about 20˚C, which nearly coincide in the highest rate of P-wave velocity increase with decreasing temperature. The measurement data clearly show existence of additionally induced bulk modulus by the bulk viscosity. The estimated P-wave attenuation and velocity data are expected to help us better understanding for the modeling.