Abstract
In this study, a coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical model to simulate multiple hydraulic fracture propagation is presented. Fracture propagation with elastic deformation is described by using a displacement discontinuity method. The temperature distribution and induced thermal stress are calculated via a semi-analytical method in an explicit way. An iterative scheme is proposed to solve the coupling between fracture propagation with fluid flow and induced thermal stress. The numerical model is validated against related analytical solutions. Several numerical cases are modeled to investigate the controlling factors for uniform growth of multiple fractures. Results show that using non-uniform fracture spacings and proper increasing the spacing for fractures away from the heel of wellbore promote the uniform growth of multiple fractures by comparison with using uniform fracture spacings. Increasing the perforation diameter for the middle cluster also works. Besides, single-wing fracturing could greatly improve the uniform growth of multiple hydraulic fractures. Finally, it shows that the thermal stress has a significant influence on fracture geometrical size but has limited effect on fracture propagation path. In addition, the thermal effect promotes the uniform growth of multiple fractures.
Highlights
It shows great agreement between the numerical solution and analytical solution, which indicates that the stress and displacement discontinuity are correctly captured with the displacement discontinuity method (DDM)
To investigate the effect of fracture spacings on the uniform growth of multiple fractures, two-cluster fracturing is modeled with different fracture spacings of 10 m, 20 m, 30 m and 40 m
Compared with two-wing fracturing, the variance of half-length decreases from 33.5 to 0.06 for the twocluster fractures and decreases from 121.9 to 7.4 for the three-cluster fractures. It indicates that single-wing fracturing could greatly improve the uniform growth of multiple hydraulic fractures
Summary
Frontiers Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System, Key Lab of Submarine Geosciences and Prospecting Techniques, MOE and College of Marine Geosciences, Ocean University of China, Qingdao. Laboratory for Marine Mineral Resources, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao 266100, China
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