Numerical Modeling of Hydraulic Fractures Interaction in Complex Naturally Fractured Formations

Kresse, Olga; Weng, Xiaowei; Gu, Hongren; Wu, R.

doi:10.1007/s00603-012-0359-2

Cited by 284 publications

(142 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…The complexity in reservoir modeling either comes from reservoir characterization (e.g., heterogeneity and anisotropy in permeability) or from the process of oil recovery (e.g., capillarity, gravity and phase behavior), or from both (Kresse et al 2013). To resolve this complexity, a dual-porosity model (Nie et al 2012) and recently a triple-porosity model (Huang et al 2015;Sang et al 2016) have been introduced to simulate fractured reservoirs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Naturally fractured hydrocarbon reservoir simulation by elastic fracture modeling

Soleimani

2017

Pet. Sci.

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Accurate fluid flow simulation in geologically complex reservoirs is of particular importance in construction of reservoir simulators. General approaches in naturally fractured reservoir simulation involve use of unstructured grids or a structured grid coupled with locally unstructured grids and discrete fracture models. These methods suffer from drawbacks such as lack of flexibility and of ease of updating. In this study, I combined fracture modeling by elastic gridding which improves flexibility, especially in complex reservoirs. The proposed model revises conventional modeling fractures by hard rigid planes that do not change through production. This is a dubious assumption, especially in reservoirs with a high production rate in the beginning. The proposed elastic fracture modeling considers changes in fracture properties, shape and aperture through the simulation. This strategy is only reliable for naturally fractured reservoirs with high fracture permeability and less permeable matrix and parallel fractures with less cross-connections. Comparison of elastic fracture modeling results with conventional modeling showed that these assumptions will cause production pressure to enlarge fracture apertures and change fracture shapes, which consequently results in lower production compared with what was previously assumed. It is concluded that an elastic gridded model could better simulate reservoir performance.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Naturally fractured hydrocarbon reservoir simulation by elastic fracture modeling

Soleimani

2017

Pet. Sci.

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“…The hydraulic fracture can provide a high-conductivity path for methane migration in the low permeability reservoir. In recent years, to investigate propagation and re-orientation of hydraulic fracture, lots of research has been conducted [2][3][4][5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical Simulation of the Propagation of Hydraulic and Natural Fracture Using Dijkstra’s Algorithm

Xiao

2016

Energies

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Utilization of hydraulic-fracturing technology is dramatically increasing in exploitation of natural gas extraction. However the prediction of the configuration of propagated hydraulic fracture is extremely challenging. This paper presents a numerical method of obtaining the configuration of the propagated hydraulic fracture into discrete natural fracture network system. The method is developed on the basis of weighted fracture which is derived in combination of Dijkstra's algorithm energy theory and vector method. Numerical results along with experimental data demonstrated that proposed method is capable of predicting the propagated hydraulic fracture configuration reasonably with high computation efficiency. Sensitivity analysis reveals a number of interesting observation results: the shortest path weight value decreases with increasing of fracture density and length, and increases with increasing of the angle between fractures to the maximum principal stress direction. Our method is helpful for evaluating the complexity of the discrete fracture network, to obtain the extension direction of the fracture.

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“…Zhang et al [30] investigated the stability of hydraulic fracture network propagation and found that the localization instability can be suppressed by fluid viscosity. To sum up, the DDM-based models are appropriate for the simulation of complex fracture networks and have been used by more and more researchers [3,7,8,[28][29][30][31][32][33].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With the distributions of fracture length, orientation, aperture, etc., and the fracture density, random NF networks can be created [20]. The DFN model has been used by many researchers [3,7,8,20,32]. For example, Riahi and Damjanac [20] investigated the effects of NF connectivity, injection pressure, etc., on the complexity of hydraulic fracture network.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, Riahi and Damjanac [20] investigated the effects of NF connectivity, injection pressure, etc., on the complexity of hydraulic fracture network. Kresse et al [32] investigated the propagation of fracture networks when complex natural fractures are created. McClure and Horne [7] investigated how shear stimulation can affect the process of fluid propagation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Numerical Analysis on the Optimization of Hydraulic Fracture Networks

et al. 2015

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Abstract:The clear understanding of hydraulic fracture network complexity and the optimization of fracture network configuration are important to the hydraulic fracturing treatment of shale gas reservoirs. For the prediction of hydraulic fracture network configuration, one of the problems is the accurate representation of natural fractures. In this work, a real natural fracture network is reconstructed from shale samples. Moreover, a virtual fracture system is proposed to simulate the large number of small fractures that are difficult to identify. A numerical model based on the displacement discontinuity method is developed to simulate the fluid-rock coupling system. A dimensionless stress difference that is normalized by rock strength is proposed to quantify the anisotropy of crustal stress. The hydraulic fracturing processes under different stress conditions are simulated. The most complex fracture configurations are obtained when the maximum principle stress direction is perpendicular to the principle natural fracture direction. In contrast, the worst results are obtained when these two directions are parallel to each other. Moreover, the side effects of the unfavorable geological conditions caused by crustal stress anisotropy can be partly suppressed by increasing the viscous effect of the fluid.

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Numerical Modeling of Hydraulic Fractures Interaction in Complex Naturally Fractured Formations

Cited by 284 publications

References 23 publications

Naturally fractured hydrocarbon reservoir simulation by elastic fracture modeling

Naturally fractured hydrocarbon reservoir simulation by elastic fracture modeling

Numerical Simulation of the Propagation of Hydraulic and Natural Fracture Using Dijkstra’s Algorithm

Numerical Analysis on the Optimization of Hydraulic Fracture Networks

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