Utilization of hydraulic-fracturing technology is dramatically increasing in exploitation of natural gas extraction. However the prediction of the configuration of propagated hydraulic fracture is extremely challenging. This paper presents a numerical method of obtaining the configuration of the propagated hydraulic fracture into discrete natural fracture network system. The method is developed...

Water fluxes in unsaturated, fractured rock involve the physical processes occurring at fracture-matrix interfaces within fracture networks. Modeling these water fluxes using a discrete fracture network model is a complicated effort. Existing preprocessors for TOUGH2 are not suitable to generate grids for fracture networks with various orientations and inclinations. There are several 3-D discre...

Hydraulic fracture in shale reservoir presents complex network propagation, which has essential difference with traditional plane biwing fracture at forming mechanism. Based on the research results of experiments, field fracturing practice, theory analysis, and numerical simulation, the influence factors and their mechanism of hydraulic fracture extending into network in shale have been systema...

This paper documents our effort to use a fully coupled hydro-geomechanical numerical test bed to study using low hydraulic pressure to stimulate geothermal reservoirs with existing fracture network. In this low pressure stimulation strategy, fluid pressure is lower than the minimum in situ compressive stress, so the fractures are not completely open but permeability improvement can be achieved ...

The explosion process of explosives in a borehole applies a very high pressure on its surrounding rock media. This process can initiate and propagate rock fractures, and finally, may result in the rock fragmentation. Rock fragmentation is mainly caused by the propagation of inherent pre-existing fractures of the rock mass and also from the extension of the newly formed cracks within the intact ...

The clear understanding of hydraulic fracture network complexity and the optimization of fracture network configuration are important to the hydraulic fracturing treatment of shale gas reservoirs. For the prediction of hydraulic fracture network configuration, one of the problems is the accurate representation of natural fractures. In this work, a real natural fracture network is reconstructed ...

A multi-scale scheme for the invasion percolation of rock fracture networks with heterogeneous fracture aperture fields is proposed. Inside fractures, fluid transport is calculated on the finest scale and found to be localized in channels as a consequence of the aperture field. The channel network is characterized and reduced to a vectorized artificial channel network (ACN). Different realizati...

The paper presents a novel hydraulic fracturing model for the characterization and simulation of the complex fracture network in shale gas reservoirs. We go beyond the existing method that uses planar or orthogonal conjugate fractures for representing the ‘‘complexity’’ of the network. Bifurcation of fractures is performed utilizing the Lindenmayer system based on fractal geometry to describe t...

Discrete fracture network (DFN) model simulations, where a fracture network can have a natural heterogeneity, is one of the most effective approaches in fluid flow analyses for naturally fractured and enhanced geothermal reservoirs. In the DFN model simulations, fractures are modeled by a pair of parallel smooth plates although real fractures have rough surfaces. Numerous field and laboratory o...