AccScience Publishing / JSE / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/JSE026070033
ARTICLE

Properties of fluids under multiphysical coupling and frequency-dependent rock physics modeling

Lujia Ma1 Guangtan Huang2* Zhennan Yu2 Haiyu Li3 Mingliao Wu3
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1 School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
2 The State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, Hubei, China
3 The Key Laboratory of Exploration Technology for Oil and Gas Resources of Ministry of Education, College of Geophysics and Petroleum Resources, Yangtze University, Wuhan, Hubei, China
Received: 13 February 2026 | Revised: 26 March 2026 | Accepted: 2 April 2026 | Published online: 15 May 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

In fluid underground storage and seismic monitoring, accurately characterizing the physical properties of fluid-bearing rocks under multiphysical coupling is crucial. However, in deep geological environments, fluids often exist in a supercritical state with highly nonlinear acoustic properties. Moreover, most existing models lack a unified framework for multiple gas types, often treating fluid properties as constants, which does not adequately reflect their actual state. This study proposes a method for constructing a frequency-dependent rock physics model for fluid-bearing rocks. Three equations of state were used to calculate the density, bulk modulus, and acoustic velocity of carbon dioxide, methane, and hydrogen, which were then compared with reference data from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The properties of brine under varying temperature and pressure conditions were derived from the Batzle–Wang model, and the properties of mixed fluids were obtained using Wood’s equation, before being integrated into a sandstone matrix. To account for inelastic behavior, the Johnson and White models were applied to analyze the effects of fluid distribution on compressional wave velocity and the attenuation factor under different conditions. The results show that the acoustic properties of fluids are significantly influenced by phase changes. This frequency-dependent rock physics model improves upon most conventional models that treat fluid properties as fixed constants, enabling more accurate calculation of acoustic properties in deep environments. It thus provides a theoretical basis for underground fluid storage and monitoring in practical applications.

Keywords
Multiphysical coupling
Supercritical fluids
Equations of state
Geological storage of carbon dioxide/methane/hydrogen
Johnson model
White model
Funding
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No.: 2024YFB4007100), the National Major Science and Technology Projects of China (Grant No.: 2024ZD1004300), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.: 42304133 and 42574175) and the Key Project from the Hubei Research Center for Basic Disciplines of Earth Sciences (Grant No.: HRCES-202401).
Conflict of interest
Guangtan Huang is an Editorial Board Member of this journal, but was not in any way involved in the editorial and peer-review process conducted for this paper, directly or indirectly. The authors declare there is no conflict of interest.
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Journal of Seismic Exploration, Electronic ISSN: 0963-0651 Print ISSN: 0963-0651, Published by AccScience Publishing