Loading...

3D simulation of propagation of hydraulically driven fractures in oil reservoirs using EFG mesh-less method considering coupled hydro-mechanical effects

Pak, A ; Sharif University of Technology | 2015

758 Viewed
  1. Type of Document: Article
  2. Publisher: Taylor and Francis - Balkema , 2015
  3. Abstract:
  4. Creating hydraulically induced fractures in oil/gas reservoirs is one of the methods for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) that has been applied extensively in petroleum industry in recent years. Despite its popularity, the design process of Hydraulic Fracture treatment is mostly empirical based on the previous experiences gained in the oil-rich formation. The reason lies in the complexities involved in the Hydraulic Fracture process including interacting effects of fluid(s) flowand solid deformations, injection of non-Newtonian fluids in the porous media, leak-off of the injected fluid into the formation, complex geometry of the induced fracture in the intact or naturally fractured rock, non-linear geo-mechanical effects, infiltration and sedimentation of the injected proppant, etc. Analytical, semi-analytical, and numerical models that have been developed so far, have taken into account only some of the mechanisms that are involved in the process. Development of a robust numerical tool for simulating the Hydraulic Fracture treatment can help the industry to overcome the difficulties that arise in the design of the Hydraulic Fracture operations and can render the operations to become more cost-effective. In this paper, a novel 3-dimensional fully coupled numerical model is presented based on the EFG mesh-less method. After describing the mathematical formulation and its numerical implementation, the model is verified against benchmark problems. At the end the capability of the developed code is manifested by simulating propagation of a hydraulically driven fracture in the saturated rock
  5. Keywords:
  6. Computer graphics ; Enhanced recovery ; Geomechanics ; Hydraulic fracturing ; Non Newtonian liquids ; Numerical models ; Porous materials ; Water injection ; Bench-mark problems ; Complex geometries ; Coupled hydro mechanicals ; Enhanced oil recovery ; Hydraulically induced fractures ; Mathematical formulation ; Non-Newtonian fluids ; Numerical implementation ; Fracture
  7. Source: Computer Methods and Recent Advances in Geomechanics - Proceedings of the 14th Int. Conference of International Association for Computer Methods and Recent Advances in Geomechanics, IACMAG 2014, 22 September 2014 through 25 September 2014, Kyoto ; September , 2015 , Pages 1675-1680 ; 9781138001480 (ISBN)
  8. URL: http://www.crcnetbase.com/doi/abs/10.1201/b17435-296