TY - JOUR

T1 - Fluid-filled fracture propagation with a phase-field approach and coupling to a reservoir simulator

AU - Wick, Thomas

AU - Singh, Gurpreet

AU - Wheeler, Mary F.

N1 - Funding Information: This research was funded by ConocoPhillips grant UTA10-000444, Department of Energy grant ER25617, Saudi Aramco grant UTA11-000320, and Statoil grant UTA13-000884. In addition, the first author has been supported partially by an Institute for Computational Sciences and Engineering (ICES) post-doctoral fellowship and a Humboldt Feodor Lynen fellowship, and is currently employed by RICAM, an institute funded by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The authors would like to express their sincere thanks for the funding. Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2016 Society of Petroleum Engineers. Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2016/6

Y1 - 2016/6

N2 - A quantitative assessment of hydraulic-fracturing jobs relies on accurate predictions of fracture growth during slickwater injection for single and multistage fracturing scenarios. This requires consistent modeling of underlying physical processes, from hydraulic fracturing to long-term production. In this work, we use a recently introduced phase-field approach to model fracture propagation in a porous medium. This approach is thermodynamically consistent and captures several characteristic features of crack propagation such as joining, branching, and nonplanar propagation as a result of heterogeneous material properties. We describe two different phase-field fracture-propagation models and then present a technique for coupling these to a fractured-poroelastic-reservoir simulator. The proposed coupling approach can be adapted to existing reservoir simulators. We present 2D and 3D numerical tests to benchmark, compare, and demonstrate the predictive capabilities of the fracture-propagation model as well as the proposed coupling scheme.

AB - A quantitative assessment of hydraulic-fracturing jobs relies on accurate predictions of fracture growth during slickwater injection for single and multistage fracturing scenarios. This requires consistent modeling of underlying physical processes, from hydraulic fracturing to long-term production. In this work, we use a recently introduced phase-field approach to model fracture propagation in a porous medium. This approach is thermodynamically consistent and captures several characteristic features of crack propagation such as joining, branching, and nonplanar propagation as a result of heterogeneous material properties. We describe two different phase-field fracture-propagation models and then present a technique for coupling these to a fractured-poroelastic-reservoir simulator. The proposed coupling approach can be adapted to existing reservoir simulators. We present 2D and 3D numerical tests to benchmark, compare, and demonstrate the predictive capabilities of the fracture-propagation model as well as the proposed coupling scheme.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84974733598&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.2118/168597-pa

DO - 10.2118/168597-pa

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84974733598

VL - 21

SP - 981

EP - 999

JO - SPE journal

JF - SPE journal

SN - 1086-055X

IS - 3

ER -