Experimental and Theoretical Study on Dynamic Hydraulic Fracture

Jingnan Dong, Mian Chen, Yuwei Li, Shiyong Wang, Chao Zeng and Musharraf Zaman
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Jingnan Dong: State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resources and Prospecting, Beijing 102249, China
Mian Chen: State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resources and Prospecting, Beijing 102249, China
Yuwei Li: Institute of Unconventional Oil & Gas, Northeast Petroleum University, Daqing 163318, China
Shiyong Wang: State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resources and Prospecting, Beijing 102249, China
Chao Zeng: Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, Missouri University of Sciences and Technology, Rolla, MO 65409, USA
Musharraf Zaman: Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 3, 1-22

Abstract: Hydraulic fracturing is vital in the stimulation of oil and gas reservoirs, whereas the dynamic process during hydraulic fracturing is still unclear due to the difficulty in capturing the behavior of both fluid and fracture in the transient process. For the first time, the direct observations and theoretical analyses of the relationship between the crack tip and the fluid front in a dynamic hydraulic fracture are presented. A laboratory-scale hydraulic fracturing device is built. The momentum-balance equation of the fracturing fluid is established and numerically solved. The theoretical predictions conform well to the directly observed relationship between the crack tip and the fluid front. The kinetic energy of the fluid occupies over half of the total input energy. Using dimensionless analyses, the existence of equilibrium state of the driving fluid in this dynamic system is theoretically established and experimentally verified. The dimensionless separation criterion of the crack tip and the fluid front in the dynamic situation is established and conforms well to the experimental data. The dynamic analyses show that the separation of crack tip and fluid front is dominated by the crack profile and the equilibrium fluid velocity. This study provides a better understanding of the dynamic hydraulic fracture.

Keywords: dynamic hydraulic-fracturing experiments; dynamic crack tip; fluid front kinetics; energy conservation analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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