Adjoint-Based Borehole Acoustic First-Arrival Traveltime Tomography for Near-Borehole 3D Slowness Reconstruction: Method and Applications

Feiyue Xia is a Ph.D. student in Petroleum Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, advised by Professor Carlos Torres-Verdín. His research develops modeling and inversion methods for borehole acoustic measurements — including fast 3D eikonal simulation, adjoint-state first-arrival and reflection traveltime tomography, and finite-difference modeling of elastic and poroelastic wave propagation — to reconstruct high-resolution near- and far-borehole velocity images and improve formation evaluation in high-angle and horizontal wells.

He earned his M.S. under Professor Xiao-Ming Tang at the China University of Petroleum (East China), where he studied forward modeling of borehole acoustic waves in cracked porous formations, with additional international study programs in Italy and Russia. His broader interests span borehole geophysics, rock physics, and ultrasonic reflection modeling and experiments, supported by a strong programming foundation in C/C++, Fortran, and Python with high-performance computing.