A finite element approach to the simulation of hydraulic fractures with lag英文资料.pdfVIP

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL AND ANALYTICAL METHODS IN GEOMECHANICS Int. J. Numer. Anal. Meth. Geomech. 2013; 37:993– 1015 Published online 4 February 2012 in Wiley Online Library (). DOI: 10.1002/nag.1131 A finite element approach to the simulation of hydraulic fractures with lag 1 2 1, ,† Michael J. Hunsweck , Yongxing Shen and Adrian J. Lew * 1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA 2Laboratori de Càlcul Numèric, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC BarcelonaTech), Barcelona, Spain SUMMARY We presented a finite-element-based algorithm to simulate plane-strain, straight hydraulic fractures in an impermeable elastic medium. The algorithm accounts for the nonlinear coupling between the fluid pressure and the crack opening and separately tracks the evolution of the crack tip and the fluid front. It therefore allows the existence of a fluid lag. The fluid front is advanced explicitly in time, but an implicit strategy is needed for the crack tip to guarantee the satisfaction of Griffith’s criterion at each time step. We enforced the coupling between the fluid and the rock by simultaneously solving for the pressure field in the fluid and the crack opening at each time step. We provided verification of our algorithm by performing sample simula- tions and comparing them with two known similarity solutions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley Sons, Ltd. Received 7 July 2011; Revised 5 October 2011; Accepted 16 November 2011 KEY WORDS: finite element; hydraulic fracture; fluid lag 1. INTRODUCTION Hydraulic fracturing is involved in very diverse applications, ranging from the flow of magma through the earth’s