Application of particle and lattice codes to simulation of hydraulic fracturing

Numerical methods for hydraulic fracture propagation: A review of recent trends

“…In addition to mechanical responses, the fluid flow in these meso-scale models is realized by fluid transport elements, another mesh different from the mechanical mesh, represented by pipelines connecting the broken contacts in particle-based models (Damjanac et al, 2013(Damjanac et al, , 2015, or/and by conduits along the edge of the Voronoi cells in lattice models (Grassl et al, 2015). Coupling with a finite volume scheme has also been proposed (Papachristos et al, 2017) .…”

“…Only a few of these meso-scale models have been tested against known solutions for the propagation of a planar radial hydraulic fracture (Damjanac et al, 2015;. They appear to be able to reproduce these known solutions, albeit at a very large computation cost and with these benchmarking exercises limited to only specific combinations of model resolution, size, and initial stresses.…”

Simulations of hydro-fracking in rock mass at meso-scale using fully coupled DEM/CFD approach

“…The continuum-based meso-scale models are obviously unable to fully describe meso-scale coupled thermal, hydraulic and mechanical effects [5]. In addition, continuum models usually assume a homogeneous and an isotropic rock structure that is not realistic [9] and thus, the models do not capture interaction between the hydraulic fracturing and discrete fracture network. It is of major importance to take into account a heterogeneous mesostructure of rocks and a realistic pattern of pre-existing discontinuities that affect the shape and range of hydraulic fracture propagation.…”

Three-Dimensional Network Model for Coupling of Fracture and Mass Transport in Quasi-Brittle Geomaterials

“…Models for this coupling are commonly based on continuum mechanics combined with a discrete representation of cracks [1,2,3,4,5]. Alternatively, discrete approaches, such as discrete element method, lattice and network models, have been proposed to model these processes [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15].One network approach, based on the Delaunay tessellation of a random set of points, has been shown to be suitable for modelling fracture [16,17,18,19] and mass transport [20], providing mesh insensitive results. In this approach, the physical processes are modelled by a multi-dimensional network of one-dimensional elements, which are placed on the Delaunay edges ( Figure 1a); the element properties are determined by the corresponding Voronoi tessellation.…”