Three-dimensional finite element simulation and parametric study for horizontal well hydraulic fracture

Zhang, G.M.; Liu, H.; Zhang, J.; Wu, HengAn; Wang, X.X.

doi:10.1016/j.petrol.2010.03.032

Cited by 121 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Carrier and Granet's numerical results about injection pressure and fracture aperture are very consistent with analytical solutions under a zero fluid lag assumption. Zhang et al [31] set up a 3D nonlinear fluid-mechanics coupling model, by using finite element software ABAQUS. The field data from the Daqing (in China) oilfield were used in numerical computations, and the evolution of the bottomhole pressure in the simulation was coincident with the corresponding data from the field measurements.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical Investigation of Influence of In-Situ Stress Ratio, Injection Rate and Fluid Viscosity on Hydraulic Fracture Propagation Using a Distinct Element Approach

Zhang

et al. 2016

Energies

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Numerical simulation is very useful for understanding the hydraulic fracturing mechanism. In this paper, we simulate the hydraulic fracturing using the distinct element approach, to investigate the effect of some critical parameters on hydraulic fracturing characteristics. The breakdown pressure obtained by the distinct element approach is consistent with the analytical solution. This indicates that the distinct element approach is feasible on modeling the hydraulic fracturing. We independently examine the influence of in-situ stress ratio, injection rate and fluid viscosity on hydraulic fracturing. We further emphasize the relationship between these three factors and their contributions to the hydraulic fracturing. With the increase of stress ratio, the fracture aperture increases almost linearly; with the increase of injection rate and fluid viscosity, the fracture aperture and breakdown pressure increase obviously. A low value of product of injection rate and fluid viscosity (i.e., Qµ) will lead to narrow fracture aperture, low breakdown pressure, and complex or dispersional hydraulic fractures. A high value of Qµ would lead wide fracture aperture, high breakdown pressure, and simple hydraulic fractures (e.g., straight or wing shape). With low viscosity fluid, the hydraulic fracture geometry is not sensitive to stress ratio, and thus becomes a complex fracture network.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical Investigation of Influence of In-Situ Stress Ratio, Injection Rate and Fluid Viscosity on Hydraulic Fracture Propagation Using a Distinct Element Approach

Zhang

et al. 2016

Energies

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“…The complexity of the problem seriously restricts the application of classical models like KGD (Perkins and Kern 1961;Nordgren 1972) and PKN (Geertsma and De Klerk 1969;Khristianovich and Zheltov 1955) in optimizing the fracture design. Currently, the prevailing methods for simulating hydraulic fracture propagation include displacement discontinuity method (Varahanaresh and Ahmad 2015;Dharmendra and Ahmad 2016;Wu and Olson 2016;Zhou et al 2015), discrete element method (Deng et al 2014;Conny and Heinz 2015) and finite element method (Zhang et al 2010;Wang et al 2012Wang et al , 2015Mahdi and Kamy 2015;Gonzalez et al 2015;Wang et al 2016;Feng and Gray 2017a;Lee et al 1994). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, the propagation behavior of hydraulic fracture in multilayered formations has also been studied. Zhang et al (2010) established a model to calculate the fracture shape in three layers which contains one pay zone and two barriers. Wang et al (2015) investigated the impact of formation interface shear failure on fracture height containment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A 3D numerical model for investigation of hydraulic fracture configuration in multilayered tight sandstone gas reservoirs

Gao

Cheng

Yan

2017

J Petrol Explor Prod Technol

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Multilayered tight sandstone gas reservoirs with low porosity and low permeability are usually developed by two kinds of hydraulic fracturing techniques, including general fracturing (simultaneously fracturing multiple target zones) and separate layer fracturing (sequentially fracturing the target zones from the bottom-up). However, fractures from different target zones are likely to communicate in the fracturing process which detrimentally causes the waste of fracturing fluid and proppants and finally affects the efficiency of fracturing treatment. Therefore, investigation related to hydraulic fracture configurations under different fracturing stimulation treatments is necessary with the objective of optimizing the fracturing design and predicting the production rate. In this paper, a 3D finite element model is established to simulate the propagation of multiple hydraulic fractures in the vertical well, and fracture configurations under different fracturing techniques and formation properties are analyzed and compared. The results indicate that, in vertical wells, stress interference between the fracture tips will accelerate the communication of adjacent vertical fractures along the height direction. And separate layer fracturing is preferable for stimulating multilayered tight sandstone gas reservoirs. Also, adjacent pay zones and barriers with high in situ stress contrast, high tensile strength contrast and low elastic modulus contrast are able to effectively prevent the communication of fractures along the height direction and lead to the increase of fracture length and width, and so does the barriers with large thickness.

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“…Such as the finite element method (FEM) (Guo et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2010;Chen et al, 2009;Tang et al, 2009aTang et al, , 2009b, finite difference method (FDM) (Nagel and Sanchez-Nagel, 2011), boundary element method (BEM) (Hossain and Rahman, 2008;Rahman et al, 2002), displacement discontinuity method (DDM) (Zhang et al, 2007, discrete element method (DEM) (Nagel et al, 2012;Tang et al, 2014Tang et al, , 2013 and the extended finite element method (XFEM) (Taleghani, 2009). Table 1 summarizes some numerical methods and software products for hydraulic fracturing simulation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Chen et al (Chen, 2012;Chen et al, 2009) simulated twodimensional (2D) radial fracture initiation and propagation problem using PPCE, and their simulation results were consistent with the analytical solution of K-vertex (Savitski and Detournay, 2002). Zhang et al (Zhang et al, 2010) studied the horizontal well hydraulic fracture propagation mechanism based on 3D PPCE which took the influences of casing, cement sheath, micro-annulus and perforation holes into consideration. However, they didn't discuss the presence and propagation of the micro-annulus.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coupled flow-stress-damage simulation of deviated-wellbore fracturing in hard-rock

Zhu

Zhao

Guo

et al. 2015

Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering

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Three-dimensional finite element simulation and parametric study for horizontal well hydraulic fracture

Cited by 121 publications

References 19 publications

Numerical Investigation of Influence of In-Situ Stress Ratio, Injection Rate and Fluid Viscosity on Hydraulic Fracture Propagation Using a Distinct Element Approach

Numerical Investigation of Influence of In-Situ Stress Ratio, Injection Rate and Fluid Viscosity on Hydraulic Fracture Propagation Using a Distinct Element Approach

A 3D numerical model for investigation of hydraulic fracture configuration in multilayered tight sandstone gas reservoirs

Coupled flow-stress-damage simulation of deviated-wellbore fracturing in hard-rock

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