A Random‐XFEM technique modeling of hydraulic fracture interaction with natural void

Abstract

In this paper, a Random-XFEM technology was employed to simulate hydraulic fracture interaction with the natural void in a random field of Young's modulus. The random distribution of Young's modulus is characterized by random field theory, while the stress and pressure fields fracturing were solved by the extended finite element method. And a Random-XFEM iteration algorithm was proposed to solve the hydraulic fracture propagation problem. Then the proposed model was verified against the KGD model and numerical study. A series of numerical examples were presented to analyze the interaction mechanism of hydraulic fracture and void in a random field. The numerical results show that the random field of Young's modulus has a great impact on the hydraulic fracture propagation path. Under the random distribution of Young's modulus, the hydraulic fracture would deviate from the direction of maximum horizontal principal stress. And the random field parameters (Young's modulus mean and point variance) have different effects on the hydraulic fracture propagation path. Also, the interaction patterns of hydraulic fracture and void are greatly affected by random fields.

Numerical Investigation of Fracture Morphology Characteristics in Heterogeneous Reservoirs

“…In this paper, we adopt a toughness-dominated asymptotic solution of the KGD model proposed by Santillan et al [47] for verification. Analytical solutions of hydraulic fracture have been adopted to verify the numerical models based on the extended finite element method and the displacement discontinuity method [56][57][58]. The minor difference between the analytical results and numerical predictions implies that our numerical model achieves the same order of accuracy with the classical models.…”