Related papers: Why Fracking Works and How to Optimize It
The paper presents a numerical method for simulating flow and mechanics in fractured rock. The governing equations that couple the effects in the rock mass and in the fractures are obtained using the discrete fracture-matrix approach. The…
It is usually assumed that hydraulic fracture has two symmetrical wings with respect to the fluid injection point. Hence, authors limit themselves to modelling of one half of the fracture. In our work we demonstrate that the case of a…
The purpose of this study is to investigate morphology of simultaneously propagating hydraulic fractures. Simultaneous propagation of hydraulic fractures occurs during stimulation of horizontal wells, and, in particular, several initiation…
Cracks are the major vehicle for material failure, and often exhibit rather complex dynamics. The laws that govern their motion have remained an object of constant study for nearly a century. The simplest kind of dynamic crack is a single…
Patterns on broken surfaces are well-known from everyday experience, but surprisingly, how and why they form are very much open questions. Well-defined facets are commonly observed1-4 along fracture surfaces which are created by slow…
This paper presents a formulation for brittle fracture in 3D elastic solids within the context of configurational mechanics. The local form of the first law of thermodynamics provides a condition for equilibrium of the crack front. The…
We review microstructural fracture growth models suitable for the study of hydraulic fracture processes in disordered porous materials and present some basic results. It is shown that microstructural models exhibit certain similarities to…
Over the past few decades, the phase-field method for fracture has seen widespread appeal due to the many benefits associated with its ability to regularize a sharp crack geometry. Along the way, several different models for including the…
Numerical modeling of hydraulic fracturing is complicated when a fracture reaches a stress barrier. For high barriers, it may require changing of a computational scheme. Despite there are examples of modeling propagation through barriers,…
Understanding the behavior of fluid-driven hydraulic fracture in naturally fractured reservoirs is crucial in the development of geothermal energy and unconventional reservoirs. This study presents a fully-coupled numerical model to…
We consider a two dimensional lattice model to describe the opening of a crack in hydraulic fracturing. In particular we consider that the material only breaks under tension and the fluid has no pressure drop inside the crack. For the case…
The paper presents a method for solving hydraulic fracture problems accounting for the lag. The method consists in matching the outer (basic) solution neglecting the lag, with the inner (auxiliary) solution of the derived 1D integral…
The process of frictional rupture, i.e. the failure of frictional systems, abounds in the technological and natural world around us, ranging from squealing car brake pads to earthquakes along geological faults. A general framework for…
In the hydraulic fracturing of natural rocks, understanding and predicting crack penetrations into the neighboring layers is crucial and relevant in terms of cost-efficiency in engineering and environmental protection. This study…
To economically produce from very low permeability shale formations, hydraulic fracturing stimulation is typically used to improve their conductivity. This process deforms and breaks the rock, hence requires the geomechanics data and…
One might ask why is it important to know the mechanism of fracture in leaves when Mother Nature is doing her job perfectly. I could list the following reasons to address that question: (a) Leaves are natural composite structures, during…
In the quest to determine fault weakening processes that govern earthquake mechanics, it is common to infer the earthquake breakdown energy from seismological measurements. Breakdown energy is observed to scale with slip, which is often…
Earthquakes induced during hydraulic fracturing operations have occurred in a number of locales. However, in-situ studies aimed to discern the triggering mechanism remains exclusively statistical in their nature. Here, we calculate the…
We detail the energy balance of a propagating hydraulic fracture. Using the linear hydraulic fracture model which combines lubrication flow and linear elastic fracture mechanics, we demonstrate how different propagation regimes are related…
Earthquakes occur because of abrupt slips on faults due to accumulated stress in the Earth's crust. Because most of these faults and their mechanisms are not readily apparent, deterministic earthquake prediction is difficult. For effective…