The recently developed Unconventional Fracture Model (UFM*) simulates complex hydraulic fracture network propagation in a formation with pre-existing closed natural fractures, and explicitly models hydraulic injection into a fracture network with multiple propagating branches [1]. The model predicts whether a hydraulic fracture front crosses or is arrested by a natural fracture it encounters, w...

Hydraulic fracturing and matrix stimulation are two major methods of the reservoir stimulation. Hydraulic fracturing, which is the newest technique and technically more complex, is very useful in low permeability reservoirs. Although it has been used widely in hydrocarbon production wells, it is a new method in Iran. In this paper, the effect of sufficient barrier layers on hydraulic fracturing...

Numerical simulation is very useful for understanding the hydraulic fracturing mechanism. In this paper, we simulate the hydraulic fracturing using the distinct element approach, to investigate the effect of some critical parameters on hydraulic fracturing characteristics. The breakdown pressure obtained by the distinct element approach is consistent with the analytical solution. This indicates...

Fractured-rock aquifers display spatially and temporally variable hydraulic conductivity generally attributed to variable fracture intensity and connectivity. Empirical evidence suggests fracture aperture and hydraulic conductivity are sensitive to in situ stress. This study investigates the sensitivity of fractured-rock hydraulic conductivity, groundwater flow paths, and advectiondominated tra...

Hydraulic fracturing is an important method of reservoir stimulation in the exploitation of geothermal resources, and conventional and unconventional oil and gas resources. In this article, hydraulic fracturing experiments with shale, sandstone cores (from southern Sichuan Basin), and granite cores (from Inner Mongolia) were conducted to investigate the different hydraulic fracture extension pa...

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...

In this paper, the hydraulic and heat-transfer properties of two sets of artificially fractured granite samples are investigated. First, the morphological information is determined using 3D modelling technology. The area ratio is used to describe the roughness of the fracture surface. Second, the hydraulic properties of fractured granite are tested by exposing samples to different confining pre...

The influence of the multiscale fracture roughness on the heat exchange when a cold fluid enters a fractured hot solid is studied numerically on the basis of the Stokes equation and in the limit of both hydrolubrication and thermolubrication. The geometrical complexity of the fracture aperture is modeled by small self-affine perturbations added to a uniform aperture field. Thermal and hydraulic...

Chang 8 oil deposit, developed in Hohe and Jihe oil fields at the southern Yi-Shan Slop of Ordos Basin, is regarded as a kind of typical sand reservoir formation with super-low porosity, poor permeability, strong anisotropy as well as locally natural faults and fractures. The previous studies believed that matrix reservoir has a good permeability, whereas fracture reservoir has a reverse manner...

A theoretical method is proposed to estimate post-fracturing fracture size and transmissivity, and as a test of the methodology, data collected from two wells were used for verification. This method can be employed before hydrofracturing in order to obtain estimates of the potential hydraulic benefits of hydraulic fracturing. Five different pumping test analysis methods were used to evaluate th...