Weak elastic anisotropy and the tube wave

Abstract

Tube‐wave speed in the presence of a weakly anisotropic formation can be expressed in terms of an effective shear modulus for an equivalent isotropic formation. When combined with expressions for the speeds of the SH‐ and quasi‐SV‐waves along the borehole axis, a simple inversion procedure can be obtained to determine three of the five elasticities of a transversely isotropic (TI) formation tilted at some known angle with respect to the borehole axis. Subsequently, a fourth combination of elastic moduli can be estimated from the expression for the qP‐wave speed along the borehole axis. The possibility of determining all five elasticities of a TI formation based on an assumed correlation between two anisotropy parameters is discussed.