Three-Dimensional Hydromechanical Model of Hydraulic Fracturing with Arbitrarily Discrete Fracture Networks using Finite-Discrete Element Method

Yan, Chengzeng; Zheng, Hong

doi:10.1061/(asce)gm.1943-5622.0000819

Cited by 81 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…The hydro-mechanical coupling essential to hydraulic fracturing has been investigated (Yan and Zheng, 2016), although no benchmarks with known solutions for hydraulic fracturing have been reported thus far.Another scheme (Profit et al, 2016a,b) combines FEM/DEM with a damage law in the bulk material and a local tip remeshing scheme such that the fracture propagation is not constrained to follow the initial mesh edges.…”

Section: Growth Along a Pre-defined Pathmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical methods for hydraulic fracture propagation: A review of recent trends

Lecampion

Bunger

Zhang

2018

Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering

353

172

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Section: Growth Along a Pre-defined Pathmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical methods for hydraulic fracture propagation: A review of recent trends

Lecampion

Bunger

Zhang

2018

Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering

353

172

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“…In the existing approaches, such as in previous studies, a given fracture defined by its aperture a and length l connects two zones with different pressures, p 1 and p 2 , as shown in Figure . For this model, the flow rate through the fracture can be calculated with the help of the cubic law

q = \frac{1}{12 μ} \frac{a^{3}}{l} normalΔ p,

where μ is the dynamic viscosity of fluid and Δ p = p 1 − p 2 is the pressure difference between the two ends of the fracture.…”

Section: Critical Time Step Calculation For Existing Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This dependency of the time step on the fracture aperture is a significant drawback because, as a simulation progresses and apertures grow because of the effect of the fluid pressure, the simulations become increasingly more expensive in computational terms because of the reduction of the critical time step. One way to work around this issue and therefore increase the size of the fluid's critical time step would be to use a relatively coarse mesh combined with a restriction on the maximum aperture of the fractures …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulation of discrete cracks driven by nearly incompressible fluid via 2D combined finite‐discrete element method

Lei

Rougier

Munjiza

et al. 2019

Num Anal Meth Geomechanics

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Summary In this work, we propose a novel hydraulic solver in order to simulate key mechanisms that control fluid‐driven cracks in the framework of the combined finite‐discrete element method (FDEM). The main innovative aspect of the present work is the independence of the fluid's critical time step size with the fracture opening. This advantage is extremely important because it means that very fine meshes can be used around areas of interest, such as boreholes, without penalizing the computational cost as fractures propagate (ie, open) and the fluid flows through them. This is a great advantage over other recently introduced approaches that exhibit a dependency of the time step in the form of Δtcrit ∝ (l/a)2 where l is the element size and a is the fracture aperture. This paper presents a series of benchmark cases for the proposed solver. The rationale adopted by the authors was to benchmark and validate the implementation of the hydraulic solver in an incremental fashion, starting from the simplest cases and building in complexity. The results shown in this work clearly demonstrate that the proposed approach is able to reproduce analytical results for fluid flow through a single crack. The results presented in this paper also demonstrate that the new approach is robust enough to deal with complex fracture patterns and complex geometries; the obtained fluid‐driven fracture patterns in the vicinity of a borehole certainly stand to the scrutiny of human visual perception.

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“…However, the FDEM could only be used to perform pure mechanical fracture calculations initially. Therefore, some hydro‐mechanical coupled models based on the FDEM were developed for simulating hydraulic fracturing, which can be used to solve the fluid‐driven fracturing of media with arbitrary complex fracture networks . Later, a two‐dimensional thermo‐mechanical coupling model based on the FDEM was also developed to simulate thermal cracking .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A three‐dimensional heat transfer and thermal cracking model considering the effect of cracks on heat transfer

Yan

Jiao

Zheng

2019

Num Anal Meth Geomechanics

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Summary A simple three‐dimensional heat transfer model is developed to consider the hindering effect of cracks on heat transfer. The 3D heat transfer model can also be applied to numerical methods such as the combined finite‐discrete element method (FDEM), discrete element method (DEM), discontinuous deformation analysis (DDA), the numerical manifold method (NMM), and the finite element method (FEM) to construct thermo‐mechanical coupling models that allow these methods to solve thermal cracking problems and dynamically consider the hindering effect of cracks on heat transfer. In the 3D heat transfer model, the continuous‐discontinuous medium is discretized into independent tetrahedral elements, and joint elements are inserted between adjacent tetrahedral elements. Heat transfer calculations for continuous‐discontinuous media are converted to heat conduction in tetrahedral elements and the heat exchange between the adjacent tetrahedral elements through the joint element. If the joint element between adjacent tetrahedral elements breaks (ie, a crack generates), the heat exchange coefficient of the joint element is reduced to account for the hindering effect of cracks on heat conduction. Then the model and the FDEM are combined to build a thermo‐mechanical coupling model to simulate thermal cracking. The thermally induced deformation, stress, and cracking are investigated by the thermo‐mechanical coupling model, and the numerical results are compared with analytical solutions or experimental results. The 3D heat transfer model and thermo‐mechanical model can provide a powerful tool for simulating heat transfer and thermal cracking in a continuous‐discontinuous medium.

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Three-Dimensional Hydromechanical Model of Hydraulic Fracturing with Arbitrarily Discrete Fracture Networks using Finite-Discrete Element Method

Cited by 81 publications

References 64 publications

Numerical methods for hydraulic fracture propagation: A review of recent trends

Numerical methods for hydraulic fracture propagation: A review of recent trends

Simulation of discrete cracks driven by nearly incompressible fluid via 2D combined finite‐discrete element method

A three‐dimensional heat transfer and thermal cracking model considering the effect of cracks on heat transfer

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