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Thermo-hydro-mechanical modeling of fracturing porous media with two-phase fluid flow using X-FEM technique

Khoei, A. R ; Sharif University of Technology | 2020

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  1. Type of Document: Article
  2. DOI: 10.1002/nag.3153
  3. Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Ltd , 2020
  4. Abstract:
  5. In this paper, a fully coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical model is presented for two-phase fluid flow and heat transfer in fractured/fracturing porous media using the extended finite element method. In the fractured porous medium, the traction, heat, and mass transfer between the fracture space and the surrounding media are coupled. The wetting and nonwetting fluid phases are water and gas, which are assumed to be immiscible, and no phase-change is considered. The system of coupled equations consists of the linear momentum balance of solid phase, wetting and nonwetting fluid continuities, and thermal energy conservation. The main variables used to solve the system of equations are solid phase displacement, wetting fluid pressure, capillary pressure, and temperature. The fracture is assumed to impose the strong discontinuity in the displacement field and weak discontinuities in the fluid pressure, capillary pressure, and temperature fields. The mode I fracture propagation is employed using a cohesive fracture model. Finally, several numerical examples are solved to illustrate the capability of the proposed computational algorithm. It is shown that the effect of thermal expansion on the effective stress can influence the rate of fracture propagation and the injection pressure in hydraulic fracturing process. Moreover, the effect of thermal loading is investigated properly on fracture opening and fluids flow in unsaturated porous media, and the convective heat transfer within the fracture is captured successfully. It is shown how the proposed computational model is capable of modeling the fully coupled thermal fracture propagation in unsaturated porous media. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
  6. Keywords:
  7. Partially saturated ; Two-phase fluid flow ; X-FEM ; Capillarity ; Capillary tubes ; Crack propagation ; Heat convection ; Mass transfer ; Porous materials ; Thermal expansion ; Wetting ; Cohesive fracture model ; Computational algorithm ; Convective heat transfer ; Extended finite element method ; Hydraulic fracturing process ; Thermo-hydro-mechanical models ; Unsaturated porous media ; Fracture ; Energy conservation ; Finite element method ; Fluid flow ; Fracture propagation ; Fractured medium ; Heat transfer ; Hydraulic fracturing ; Modeling ; Porous medium ; Taxus x media
  8. Source: International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics ; Volume 44, Issue 18 , October , 2020 , Pages 2430-2472
  9. URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/nag.3153