Numerical Simulation of Proppant Embedment Depth in Inhomogeneous Formation Based on Field Variables Method
ABSTRACT Hydraulic fracturing, a deep formation resource extraction method, is widely used to extract oil, gas, and geothermal resources, where fracturing fluids and proppants are usually injected to support the hydraulic fractures that transport the resources. After fracturing fluid loss, there wil...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Wiley
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Energy Science & Engineering |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1002/ese3.70092 |
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| Summary: | ABSTRACT Hydraulic fracturing, a deep formation resource extraction method, is widely used to extract oil, gas, and geothermal resources, where fracturing fluids and proppants are usually injected to support the hydraulic fractures that transport the resources. After fracturing fluid loss, there will be the embedding process of proppant in inhomogeneous formations. To understand the mechanism of this phenomenon, the study comparatively investigated the embedding process of proppant in homogeneous formations, layered formations, and continuously varying inhomogeneous formations with finite element methods. Specifically, formation properties, in terms of the inhomogeneous formations, are defined as the nonlinear function of a constant position with the field‐variable (FV) method. The results show that equating nonhomogeneous formation to homogeneous formation underestimates the depth of proppant embedment in actual hydraulic fractures, which varies with proppant size. Next, the underestimation of proppant embedment in homogeneous formation, in turn, results in an overestimation of hydraulic fracture permeability. The FV method can more accurately characterize the proppant embedding process in inhomogeneous formations and reflect the fracture permeability after proppant embedding. Further, the advantages, limitations, and future research directions of this study are discussed. |
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| ISSN: | 2050-0505 |