Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, an enriched finite element technique is presented to simulate the mechanism of interaction between the hydraulic fracturing and frictional natural fault in impermeable media. The technique allows modeling the discontinuities independent of the finite element mesh by introducing additional DOFs. The coupled equilibrium and flow continuity equations are solved using a staggered Newton solution strategy, and an algorithm is proposed on the basis of fixed-point iteration concept to impose the flow condition at the hydro-fracture mouth. The cohesive crack model is employed to introduce the nonlinear fracturing process occurring ahead of the hydro-fracture tip. Frictional contact is... 

In this paper, an enriched finite element method is presented to model the interaction between the hydraulically-driven fracture and the pre-existing naturally-cemented fault within an impermeable domain. The inflow and continuity equations of the fluid phase are solved throughout the discontinuities in conjunction with the momentum balance equation of the bulk using a sequential manner based on the staggered Newton algorithm. The frictional contact behavior along the overlapped zone of the naturally-cemented fault is modeled through the extended–FEM penalty scheme. The effect of cementation bond along the natural fault is incorporated employing a modified Coulomb law to derive the... 

In this paper, a computational model is developed for the simulation of hydro-fracture growth in naturally layered impervious media using the extended finite element method (X-FEM). The equilibrium equation of the bulk is solved in conjunction with the hydro-fracture inflow and continuity equations using the staggered Newton method. The hydro-fracture inflow is modeled by using the lubrication theory, where the permeability of the fracture is incorporated by taking advantage of the cubic law. The Eigen-function expansion method is utilized in order to develop enrichment functions suited for the asymptotic stress field in the vicinity of the singular points. An energy release rate-based... 

In this paper, a new computational technique is presented for the modeling of moving boundaries in large plastic deformations based on an enriched arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian finite element method. An Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) technique is employed to capture the advantages of both Lagrangian and Eulerian methods and alleviate the drawbacks of mesh distortion in Lagrangian formulation. An enriched finite element method is implemented based on the extended FEM technique to capture the arbitrary interfaces independent of element boundaries. The process is accomplished by performing a splitting operator to separate the material (Lagrangian) phase from the convective (Eulerian)...