Uniform investigation of hydraulic fracturing propagation regimes in the plane strain model

Abstract

Summary The hydraulic fracturing propagation regimes in the plane strain model are uniformly investigated using a numerical method based on the finite element method. The regimes range from toughness‐dominated cases to viscosity‐dominated cases, covering zero leak‐off situations and small leak‐off situations. Unlike the asymptotic solutions, the numerical method is independent of the energy dissipation regimes and fluid storage regimes. The numerical method pays no special attention to the fracture tip, and it simulates fracture tip behaviors by increasing the number of functions in a natural and uniform manner. The numerical method is verified by comparing its results with the asymptotic solutions. The effect of the model sizes on the numerical method is discussed along with the robustness of the numerical method. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Quantitative evaluation indexes of the spatial steering effect of directional perforation hydraulic fractures

“…Chen and Jiang Hu et al explored the influence of perforation orientation and horizontal principal stress difference on the initiation pressure and morphology of hydraulic fractures through physical experiments on largescale true triaxial hydraulic fracturing (Chen et al, 2010;Jiang et al, 2009Jiang et al, , 2014. Numerical simulation methods mainly include the finite element method (Bao et al, 2014(Bao et al, , 2015Hunsweck et al, 2013;Zhang and Chen, 2010a;Zhang and Chen, 2010b) and the extended finite element method (Daux et al, 2000;Mo€ es and Belytschko, 2002;Sukumar et al, 2000). Dong and Tang et al used different fracture criteria to study the effect of reservoir ground stress difference, mechanical parameters, wellbore and perforation size and injection water pressure on hydraulic fracture initiation characteristics under the conditions of single-hole and double-hole perforation directional fracturing (Dong et al, 2018;Tang et al, 2017).…”

Numerical analysis of the hydrofracturing behaviour of heterogeneous glutenite considering hydro‐mechanical coupling effects based on bonded particle models

“…Hydraulic fracturing behaviours reflect the influence of both the in‐situ stress field and the heterogeneity of the rock media. Aiming at these problems, a few 2‐dimensional (2D) and 3‐dimensional (3D) analytical models have been adapted in recent decades to predict fracture initiation and breakdown pressure . For the classical analytical methods, early 2D models, such as the Perkins‐Kern‐Nordgren and Khristianovic‐Geertsma‐de Klerk, postulate that cracks initiate and propagate under conditions of plane strain and could simply and qualitatively evaluate the fracture network.…”

A unified finite element method for the simulation of hydraulic fracturing with and without fluid lag

“…Chen et al [23], Chen [24], and [25] simulated hydraulic fracturing without fluid lag using a cohesive zone model based on the finite element method. Bao et al [1] proposed a coupled finite element method to simulate hydraulic fracturing without fluid lag, accompanied by the introduction of a condensation technique to accelerate its simulation [26]. Zhang [14] et al proposed a DD method to simulate hydraulic fracturing with a fluid lag, followed by Gordeliy and Detournay [27] using an updated scheme to search fluid front position.…”

“…In this paper we extend the coupled method in [1] For simplicity, we present the unified finite element method and its simulations in a symmetric plane strain model, and use an element-wise technique [31] to remesh the model when fracture propagates. We assume that the confining stress has a constant orientation.…”