Sensitivity Analysis of Factors Affecting Fracture Height and Aperture

Oyarhossein, Mohammad Amin; Dusseault, Maurice B.

doi:10.1016/j.upstre.2022.100079

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Nonetheless, the rock brittleness can be related to other parameters, such as rock lithology, texture, effective stress, and strength [10,14]. Some researchers indicated that stiffer rocks (i.e., of high Young's modulus, E) are more suitable in low permeability zones to heighten the productivity of multistage HF operations [15,16]; high stiffness and rock brittleness are broadly related to one another [17]. As elaborated below, obtaining observations of the fracture initiation and propagation process from field HF monitoring or laboratory HF experimentation is not an easy task.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory Hydraulic Tensile Strength Correlation with Strength-Based Brittleness Indices for Carbonate Reservoirs

Ezazi,

Ghorbani,

Shafiei

et al. 2024

Geosciences

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Hydraulic fracturing (HF) is the primary choice for stimulating petroleum reservoirs. Rock tensile strength and brittleness are crucial parameters required for screening candidate reservoirs and in designing successful HF operations. However, in situ and laboratory determinations of the hydraulic tensile strength (HTS) of rock can prove problematic. Alternatively, the HTS could be estimated from the rock brittleness once a reliable relationship has been established between them. Accordingly, this paper investigates the correlations between the HTS, as measured using laboratory hydraulic fracture tests, and ten strength-based brittleness indices (BIs) selected from the research literature. The primary inputs for computing these BIs are uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) and the Brazilian tensile strength (BTS), which are typically measured for most projects using standard laboratory rock mechanics tests or obtained from log data. For the purposes of this experimental investigation, intact rock core samples were obtained from a carbonate–dolomite formation in Iran, comprising eight distinct geomechanical units, with measured values of UCS, BTS, and HTS ranging 29.7–162.2, 1.93–12.23, and 7.20–20.63 MPa, respectively. The measured HTS was found to directly correlate with the UCS, BTS, and Young’s modulus, and inversely correlated with the rock porosity. Seven of the ten investigated BIs correlated with the measured HTS over 69% (R2 ≥ 0.69). In particular, the BI expressions developed by Yagiz and Gokceoglu, Ghadernejad et al., and Khandelwal et al. exhibited relatively strong correlations with the measured HTS (producing R2 values of 0.94, 0.87, and 0.86, respectively), suggesting that these three HTS–BI correlations could be used to provide preliminary HTS estimates for the investigated carbonate–dolomite formation in Iran. This work adds to a database that can be expanded to include other geographical regions for providing useful information about the selection of a suitable site or reserve for conducting HF operations.

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