Role of Turbulent Flow in Generating Short Hydraulic Fractures With High Net Pressure in Slickwater Treatments

Ames, Brandon C.; Bunger, Andrew P.

doi:10.2118/173373-ms

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Awareness of the turbulent regime in hydraulic fracturing is not recent, having been recognized in the seminal work of Perkins and Kern. 10 The subsequent literature has emphasized the importance of considering turbulent flow, 11 especially if the fluid is a gas. [12][13][14] For HF, Nilson 15,16 considered a unidirectional flow for gas-driven HFs in a high-inertia regime for constant-pressure inlet boundary condition.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Solution for a plane strain rough‐walled hydraulic fracture driven by turbulent fluid through impermeable rock

Zolfaghari

Dontsov

Bunger

2017

Num Anal Meth Geomechanics

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Summary The impact of turbulent flow on plane strain fluid‐driven crack propagation is an important but still poorly understood consideration in hydraulic fracture modeling. The changes that hydraulic fracturing has experienced over the past decade, especially in the area of fracturing fluids, have played a major role in the transition of the typical fluid regime from laminar to turbulent flow. Motivated by the increasing preponderance of high‐rate, water‐driven hydraulic fractures with high Reynolds number, we present a semianalytical solution for the propagation of a plane strain hydraulic fracture driven by a turbulent fluid in an impermeable formation. The formulation uses a power law relationship between the Darcy‐Weisbach friction factor and the scale of the fracture roughness, where one specific manifestation of this generalized friction factor is the classical Gauckler‐Manning‐Strickler approximation for turbulent flow in a rough‐walled channel. Conservation of mass, elasticity, and crack propagation are also solved simultaneously. We obtain a semianalytical solution using an orthogonal polynomial series. An approximate closed‐form solution is enabled by a choice of orthogonal polynomials embedding the near‐tip asymptotic behavior and thus giving very rapid convergence; a precise solution is obtained with 2 terms of the series. By comparison with numerical simulations, we show that the transition region between the laminar and turbulent regimes can be relatively small so that full solutions can often be well approximated by either a fully laminar or fully turbulent solution.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Awareness of the turbulent regime in hydraulic fracturing is not recent, having been recognized in the seminal work of Perkins and Kern . The subsequent literature has emphasized the importance of considering turbulent flow, especially if the fluid is a gas. ()…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solution for a plane strain rough‐walled hydraulic fracture driven by turbulent fluid through impermeable rock

Zolfaghari

Dontsov

Bunger

2017

Num Anal Meth Geomechanics

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“…They applied their model to a 2-D fracture growth simulator. In a later paper their model was used to understand the impact of viscosity and toughness dominated regimes on multiple fracture propagation (Ames and Bunger 2015). They used a mathematical model to couple the contribution of fluid flow, rock breakage and perforation pressure drop to the total power requirement for the growth of multiple hydraulic fractures.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies for Effective Stimulation of Multiple Perforation Clusters in Horizontal Wells

Manchanda

Bryant

Bhardwaj

et al. 2016

Day 1 Tue, February 09, 2016

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Increasing the efficiency of completions in horizontal wells is an important concern in the oil and gas industry. To decrease the number of fracturing stages per well it is common practice to use multiple clusters per stage. This is done with the hope that most of the clusters in the stage will be effectively stimulated. Diagnostic evidence, however, suggests that in many cases only 1 or 2 clusters out of 4 or 5 clusters in a stage are effectively stimulated.In this paper strategies to maximize the number of effectively stimulated perforation clusters are discussed. A fully 3-D poroelastic model that simulates the propagation of non-planar fractures in heterogeneous media is developed and used to model the propagation of multiple competing, fractures. A parametric study is first conducted to show how important fracture design variables such as limited entry perforations and cluster spacing; and formation parameters such as permeability, lateral and verical heterogeneity affect the growth of competing fractures. The effect of stress shadowing due to both mechanical and poroelastic effects is accounted for.3-D numerical simulations have been performed to show the impact of some operational and reservoir parameters on simultaneous competitive fracture propagation. It was found that an increase in stage spacing decreases the stress interference between propagating fractures and increases the number of propagating fractures in a stage. It was also found that an increase in reservoir permeability can decrease the stress interference between propagating fractures because of poro-elastic stress changes. A modest (about 25%) variability in reservoir mechanical properties along the wellbore is shown to be enough to alter the number of fractures created in a hydraulic fracturing stage and mask the effects of stress shadowing. Inter-stage fracture simulations show post-shutin fracture extension induced by stress interference from adjacent propagating fractures. The impact of poro-elasticity is highlighted for infill well fracture design and preferential fracture propagation towards depleted regions is clearly observed in multi-well pad fracture simulations.The results in this paper attempt to provide practitioners with a better understanding of multi-cluster fracturing dynamics. Based on these findings recommendations are made on how best to design fracture treatments that will not only lead to the successful placement of fluid and proppant in a single fracture, but in a set of fractures that are competing with each other for growth. The ability to successfully stimulate all perforation clusters is shown to be a function of key fracture design parameters.

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“…It is thus necessary to clarify the effect of dimensionless viscosity on the deflection region. According to the data of laboratory experiments and field observations, the dimensionless viscosity,  , varies from 0 to 1000 in real working conditions [28][29][30][31]. Thus, we simulated the deflection process with  varying from 0 to 1000 and the inclination angle equaling to 30 degrees.…”

Section: Fluid Viscosity and Injection Ratementioning

confidence: 99%

Deflected trajectory of a single fluid-driven crack under anisotropic in-situ stress

Sun

Shen

Zhao

2019

Extreme Mechanics Letters

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Deflected crack trajectories are detected in hydraulic fracturing. There are numerous physical quantities impacting the deflection of a fluid-driven crack. A 2D model of the elasto-hydrodynamics system is established to predict the crack trajectory and to investigate the coupling effects of anisotropic in-situ stress, fluid viscosity, fluid injection rate and crack inclination on the crack deflection. The displacement discontinuity method (DDM) and the finite difference method (FDM) are used to solve the nonlinear problem. The concept of deflection region is defined to quantify the crack deflection. Results show that the size of the deflection region is dominated by the inclination angle. Increase of the magnitude and the difference of in-situ stresses promotes crack deflection. The combined effects of fluid viscosity and fluid injection rate are divided into three stages: significant prevention stage, significant promotion stage and insignificant prevention stage. This study provides the method for crack trajectory prediction and crack deflection control.

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Role of Turbulent Flow in Generating Short Hydraulic Fractures With High Net Pressure in Slickwater Treatments

Cited by 11 publications

References 18 publications

Solution for a plane strain rough‐walled hydraulic fracture driven by turbulent fluid through impermeable rock

Solution for a plane strain rough‐walled hydraulic fracture driven by turbulent fluid through impermeable rock

Strategies for Effective Stimulation of Multiple Perforation Clusters in Horizontal Wells

Deflected trajectory of a single fluid-driven crack under anisotropic in-situ stress

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