Validation and Application of a Three-Dimensional Model for Simulating Proppant Transport and Fracture Conductivity

Huang, Jian; Hao, Yue; Settgast, Randolph R.; White, Joshua A.; Mateen, Khalid; Gross, Hervé

doi:10.1007/s00603-022-03092-3

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 87 publications

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“…By filling the foreground and background of the proppant placement area and non placement area, feature parameters are extracted to calculate the proppant coverage rate (Huang et al, 2021; Yin et al, 2023) (referring to the ratio of the proppant placement plane area to the crack plane area). In numerical simulation, the foreground color scale of the proppant filling part accounts for 18.10%, which means that the proppant coverage rate in the crack is 18.10%.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yang et al (2023) and Guo et al (2023) used BEM-FVM to simulate the coupling of fracturing fluid, proppants and fractures to optimize fracturing parameters. Huang et al (2021) proposed a continuum model for simulating proppant transport and fluid flow in hydraulic fractures. Isaev et al (2023) proposed adaptive seeding/reseeding methods with exact integration of particles trajectories and local time step refinement in the vicinity of injection zones In these studies, equations describing the migration and sedimentation of proppant were derived based on the solid-liquid coupling relationship and sedimentation law during proppant flow (Hu et al, 2023;Li et al, 2023;Shi, 2016), and most of them were simulated with CFD-DEM (Gong et al, 2023;Liu et al, 2019;Lv et al, 2023;Shi, 2016;Tong and Mohanty, 2016;Xiang and Li, 2023;Zhang et al, 2022Zhang et al, , 2023aZhu et al, 2023) or CFD-XFEM software (Brannon et al, 2005;Qu et al, 2022Qu et al, , 2023Zhang et al, 2023b) such as fluent for two-dimensional and pseudo three-dimensional model.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Simulation and solution of a proppant migration and sedimentation model for hydraulically fractured inhomogeneously wide fractures

Peiqi,

Lin,

et al. 2024

Energy Exploration & Exploitation

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The distribution of proppant during hydraulic fracturing may directly contribute to the flow conductivity of the proppant fracture, so research on the migration and sedimentation of proppant in the fracture and the final distribution pattern is of great relevance. The mass conservation equations of proppant solids and fracturing fluid were adopted to describe the distribution of proppant migration and sedimentation in the fracture, improving the additional gravity coefficient by utilizing the density difference between proppant and fracturing fluid and the concentration of proppant, together with the proppant sedimentation velocity at different Reynolds numbers in this study. The flow coefficients were obtained by discretizing the system of equations through the finite volume method combined with the harmonic mean method and the upstream weight method. The concentration additional pressure gradient term was computed by using the Superbee format innovatively to improve the solution convergence of the model. Numerical simulations with identical parameters were compared with indoor test results, which fully verified the correctness of the model and the accuracy of the discrete solution based on the finite volume method. The effects of flow rate of fracturing fluid, ratio of injected sand, viscosity of fracturing fluid, grain size of proppant and density of proppant on proppant migration and sedimentation based on three elliptical fracture morphologies: even-wide, top-wide and bottom-narrow as well as top-narrow and bottom-wide were investigated and analyzed through comparing the rate of proppant front movement, the level of sweeping range and the degree of inhomogeneity in the range under different conditions. Findings of this study suggest that: (1) top-wide and bottom-narrow fractures are more preferable for homogenous sanding in the early stage of proppant injection, and top-narrow and bottom-wide fractures are best for sanding in the later stage; (2) the viscosity of fracturing fluid is the most influential factor on proppant migration and sedimentation, which increases in the range of 100 mPa.s to enhance the sweeping range and homogeneity of proppant sanding and therefore achieve a better fracturing effect.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulation and solution of a proppant migration and sedimentation model for hydraulically fractured inhomogeneously wide fractures

Peiqi,

Lin,

et al. 2024

Energy Exploration & Exploitation

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“…The linear systems are solved with GMRES accelerated by a block-triangular preconditioner implemented in the MultiGrid Reduction framework [13,14] provided by Hypre. Although the reactive transport feature of GEOS is tested for the first time in this benchmark, the other GEOS capabilities have been presented in previous publications [20,15,55,31,19]. In this section, we discuss the various test cases, and compare the results of the different codes and their numerical performance.…”

Section: Geos: Tte-llnl-sumentioning

confidence: 99%

A benchmark study on reactive two-phase flow in porous media: Part II - results and discussion

Ahusborde,

Amaziane,

de Hoop

et al. 2024

Comput Geosci

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This paper presents and discusses the results obtained by the participants to the benchmark described in deHoop et al, Comput. Geosci. (2023). The benchmark uses a model for CO 2 geological storage and focuses on the coupling between two-phase flow and geochemistry. Several test cases of various levels of difficulty are proposed, both in one and two spatial dimensions. Six teams participated in the benchmark, each with their own simulation code, though not all teams attempted all the cases. The codes used by the participants are described, and the results obtained on the various test cases are compared, as well as the performance of the codes. It is shown that the results obtained are widely consistent, giving a good level of confidence in the outcome of the benchmark. The general complexity of two-phase flow coupled with chemical reactions altering porous media means that some differences between the codes remain. Besides, from the convergence study, it is clear that the two-dimensional problem has a relatively high sensitivity to a spatial resolution which adds to the complexity.

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“…Zhang et al 36 conducted experiments to evaluate fracture conductivity with the samples from Permian igneous in the Sichuan Basin, China under different conditions, considering proppant particle size and concentration, acid concentration, and activity. Based on numerical simulation of proppant placement and deformation in 4 ft long fractures, a generic model is proposed by Huang et al 37 to forecast fracture conductivity in different scenarios.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Permeability of large‐scale fractures with ununiform proppant distributions in coalbed methane development

Xu,

Zhao,

Wang

et al. 2024

Energy Science & Engineering

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The coalbed methane (CBM) productivity is directly determined by the fracture permeability during hydraulic fracturing, which is regulated by the distribution of proppants. The proppant may be unevenly distributed in the fracture because of variables like the architecture of the fracture and the characteristics of the sand‐carrying fluid. This study used two types of random functions to produce different ununiform distributions of proppant clusters in large‐scale fractures, with the aim of investigating the effect of these distributions on the overall permeability of the fracture. A model of fluid‐structure coupling is proposed. The closure of large‐scale fractures under in‐situ stress is analyzed using solid mechanics and the penalty function; the CBM flowing in proppant clusters and the high‐speed channel between them is simulated using Darcy's law and the Navier–Stokes equation, respectively; and the overall permeability of fractures is computed using the fluid pressure drop throughout the fracture and the fluid flowing velocity in the fracture's outlet. Since most CBM flows along high‐speed channels between the proppant clusters, the simulated findings show that the overall permeability of fractures with an uneven distribution of proppant clusters is significantly higher than that of the proppant cluster itself. As CBM becomes more discretely distributed, the proportion of CBM flowing within the proppant cluster continuously drops. As the permeability of the proppant cluster increases, the volume ratio of proppant clusters decreases, and the distribution of proppant clusters becomes more discrete, the overall permeability of the fracture continuously increases.

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Validation and Application of a Three-Dimensional Model for Simulating Proppant Transport and Fracture Conductivity

Cited by 9 publications

References 87 publications

Simulation and solution of a proppant migration and sedimentation model for hydraulically fractured inhomogeneously wide fractures

Simulation and solution of a proppant migration and sedimentation model for hydraulically fractured inhomogeneously wide fractures

A benchmark study on reactive two-phase flow in porous media: Part II - results and discussion

Permeability of large‐scale fractures with ununiform proppant distributions in coalbed methane development

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