Simulation of Hydraulic Fracture Networks in Three Dimensions Utilizing Massively Parallel Computing Resources

Abstract

Hydraulic fracturing has been an enabling technology for commercially stimulating fracture networks for over half of a century. It has become one of the most widespread technologies for engineering subsurface fracture systems. Despite the ubiquity of this technique in the field, understanding and prediction of the hydraulic induced propagation of the fracture network in realistic, heterogeneous reservoirs has been limited. Recent developments allowing the modeling of complex fracture propagation and advances in quantifying solution uncertainties, provide the possibility of capturing both the fracturing behavior and longer term permeability evolution of rock masses under hydraulic loading across both dynamic and viscosity dominated regimes. We present a framework for leveraging these advances in practical workflows for analyzing prospective and operating geothermal / hydrothermal sites. We will demonstrate the first phase of this effort through illustrations of fully three-dimensional, 2-way coupled hydromechanical simulations of hydraulically induced fracture network propagation and discuss preliminary results regarding the mechanisms by which fracture interactions and the accompanying changes to the stress field can lead to deleterious or beneficial changes to the fracture network.

Interface and embedded joint methods for modeling dynamic fracture opening by explosive products

“…To simulate the wave propagation and interaction of a pressurized fluid within cracks in solid rock, the fully coupled method developed in the GEOS simulation framework 18,24 was extended to the dynamic problem. The wave propagation and deformation is modeled using a large strain Lagrangian Finite Element solver applied to 3-dimensional hexahedral elements.…”

“…This method models crack opening in a straightforward way by splitting the nodes of the computational grid, where we leverage the pre-existing multiphysics simulation capabilities of the GEOS simulation framework, which has been tailored and validated for hydraulic fracturing applications. 18,23,24 By incorporating high-rate gas-driven effects, it is anticipated that the resulting simulator can be used to optimize a spectrum of stimulation activities from hydraulic fracturing, to gas stimulation, to propellants, and high explosive scenarios. Within this method, it is easy to account for multiple crack branches, but the crack directions are constrained by existing mesh faces which may lead to excessive mesh dependance.…”

Modeling of Near-Wellbore Hydraulic Fracture Complexity

“…The numerical work presented in this paper was performed using the hydraulic fracturing capability in GEOS, a massively parallel, open-source multiphysics code developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory [9]. GEOS is capable of both 2D and 3D analysis, and is scalable from a single processor up to a supercomputing cluster.…”

“…We have validated GEOS against a number of standard hydraulic fracture solutions for planar bi-wing fractures [9]. One limitation of the current GEOS implementation is that the hydraulic fracture is constrained to follow the facets of the initial mesh.…”

Reduced order models describing hydraulic and mechanical apertures of cement-fracture as a function of fracture roughness, confining pressure and offset.

“…We have developed independent numerical models for each of the processes listed above, and combined them in GEOS (formerly GPAC) -an open-source computational framework for multi-scale multi-physics simulations with a focus on the geosciences, which is under development at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory [17,22]. The separate solvers, and the processes by which they are coupled is illustrated in Figure 1.…”