A Semianalytical Solution of a Vertical Fractured Well With Varying Conductivity Under Non-Darcy-Flow Condition

Abstract

Summary Fracture distributions (simple or complex fractures), fracture-conductivity heterogeneity (uniform or varying conductivity along the fracture), and flow regimes inside the fracture (Darcy or non-Darcy flow) are the three main issues that have been widely investigated for transient-pressure analysis of vertical fracture systems. In this study, we focus on the latter two issues by proposing a semianalytical solution to discuss the transient-pressure behaviors of a varying-conductivity fracture under non-Darcy-flow condition. First, a general fracture-flow equation is established for the uniform-/varying-conductivity fracture under Darcy/non-Darcy flow. Second, for the case of a varying-conductivity fracture, a dimension transformation and an unequal-length-discretization model are proposed to obtain the pressure solution. Then, the transient-pressure response for the case of non-Darcy flow in the fracture can be also obtained by use of an iterative procedure in each timestep in the Laplace domain. It is shown that results from our solutions agree very well with those reported in the literature (Guppy et al. 1982; Poe et al. 1992). Third, the transient-pressure behaviors of the varying-conductivity fracture under Darcy- and non-Darcy-flow condition are discussed in detail. Results show that non-Darcy flow in the fracture mainly reduces the effective conductivity and the transient-pressure curve follows the curve of an equivalently constant conductivity except for the case of extremely small conductivities. The pressure behaviors of varying-conductivity fractures depend on the value of average conductivity, the distribution of conductivity along the fracture, and the maximum-minimum-conductivity ratio. The presence of the varying conductivity not only affects the effective conductivity in the early and late times, but also changes the shape of the pressure curve, especially for the high-conductivity fracture in the early time. It is very difficult to accurately estimate the fracture parameters by well test for most of the cases of varying conductivities under non-Darcy flow in the fracture.