Well Test Interpretation of Vertically
Fractured Gas Wells
Robert A. Wattenbarger,* SPBAIME, StanfordU.
Henry J. Rarney, Jr., SPE-AIME,StanfordU.
Introduction
The trend in gas well testing has been to rely more
on the early-time flow data of drawdown and buildup
tests than on stabilized flow tests. The stabilized test-
ing methods often are not adequate for complicated
modern gas reservoirs because many of these reser-
voirs have extremeljj low permeabllities and the tran-
sient flow period of a well test can last for days or
weeks.
It has become common to augment the flow capaci-
ty of gas wells by hydraulically fracturing their pro-
ducing formations. In deep reservoirs the induced
fractures are generally vertical and tend to follow a
single plane of weakness. The presence of a vertical
fracture at the wellbore complicates the transient flow
behavior of a low permeability gas well. The flow is
further complicated when turbulence occurs near the
wellbore.
Russell and TruitU published transient drawdown
solutions for verticaUy-fractured Iiquid weIIs. They
developed methods of drawdown and buildup testing
utilizing these solutions, which were based on xm-
merical simulation. Clark* applied the basic Russell-
Truitt solutions to analy% fractured water injection
wells by falloff tests. Field examples were given to
substantiate the method of analysis.
The Russell-Truitt solutions and well testing meth-
ods can be extended to gas well flow. MiUheim and
Clchowicz’ presented the drawdown equations for
● Now with Scientific Software Corp., Denver.
In the analysis of field data it is important to bear in mind the proper relationship between
the radial flow period and the linear flow period. The transition between these periods is
quite long and can be misinterpreted as being the linear flow period. Another factor that
can complicate analysis is turbulence.
MAY, 1%9 Reprinted from May, 1969, Iesue of JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY
ideal gas flow, including the effects of formation dam-
age and turbulence. Two actual field cases were pre-
sented, both of which exhibited extensive fractures
and turbulent flow. For the pressure range of these
well tests, the use of ideal gas equations was accept-
able. These field cases were significant in being the
first published data showing the occurrence of turbu-
lence in fractured gas wells. We, also, observed such
cases in practice.
Our purpose here is to extend the theory of frac-
tured gas well testing to the flow of real gases. To
determine the effects of wellbore storage and turbu-
lence on well test interpretation, we developed a iinite-
difference model to simulate well test conditions,
Since gas wells usually are widely spaced and have
high compressibility, the emphasis has been put on
the early transient behavior before the effects of the
outer boundary are noticeable at the wellbore.
The Mathematical Model
The geometry of our mathematical model is similar
to that used by Prats.4 The well is centered in a circu-
lar uniform reservoir. A vertical fracture of infinite
flow capacity penetrates the formation and passes
through the wellbore. The wellbore itself is not im-
portant. Fig. 1 shows a sketch of the problem. Fig. 2
shows the idealized model.
The equation for the flow of real gas in a porous
medium with uniform porosity, . . .permeability
. and
thickness iss-r
62S
 the fracture. Eq, 5Cshows the well production rate to
V“($vm)=y* . . . . . . (1) be a sum of the gas flowing from the sand face plus
the gas that evolves from the wellbore storage effect.
where m is the real gas pseudo pressure, m(p), given Solution of this problem is particularly difficult
by because of the wellbore boundary condition for the
constant-rate case. Because of the complexity of the
problem and the nonlinearity of Eqs, 1 and SC, it is
m(p) = 2 P’ dp’ . . (2) necessary to resort to numerical techniques to solve
{ Z(p’)p(p’) the problem.
o
and 8 is the Darcy law “correction factor” which Computation Technique
accounts for non-Darcy (or turbulent) flow and is
Due to the symmetry of the problem, it is necessary
defined by to consider only one quadrant of the physical plane.
;=8 +L.. . . . (3) Before applying finite differences to Eq. 1, a coordi-
nate transformation was made. The transformation,
The Forchheimer equation gives an expression that similar to that of Prats,4 is illustrated in Fig. 2, The
accounts for inertial effects in flow through porous coordinate transformation is a conformal mapping
media.s For two-dimensional flow the Forchheimer that has certain computational advantages. The trans-
equation is generalized to formed Eq. 1 becomes

–Vp=
( ~+BPk~
P
The quantity in parentheses is non-directional and is
‘‘)~;. . k
(4)
. .
The coefficient 8 has the same value in the u-v plane
. . . . . . . . (6)

equal to the reciprocal of & as it does for the corresponding point in the x-y plane.
The constant-rate drawdown case will be consid- The Jacobian, 3(u, v), represents the ratios of ele-
ered for the geometry in Fig. 2. The boundary and mentaI areas of the two planes. For this transforma-
initial conditions are: tion,
?TZ(X, y,0)=)7’Zi , . . . . . . . (5a) 3(U, v) = (sinh’ u + sin’ v) L’ . . (7)
~m - The transformation of Eqs. 5 is straightforward
— = O on the outer boundary
an and need not be dkcussed. Some details of the nu-
m(x:O, t)=%,ll (t), –L<x<L, t>O, merical procedure am given in Appendix A.
. . . . . . . . . . (5b) This particular computing plane was chosen b-
cause the coordinate lines lie along the streamlines
and isopotential lines in the physical plane. This is
,++=kh~(,
:),=0 six strictly true only for certain incompressible flow
cases4 but is very nearly true for compressible flow
at times after the flow near the wellbore has stabilized.
— % Vw Cp dm
() —
dt well
. (5C) Aligning the computing coordinates in this manner
reduces the numerical truncation errors. This is ac-
These conditions do not allow for pressure drop along complished by locating the mesh points such that the

VERTIC$:A~:ACTURE
/

PHYSICAL (Z2) PLANE

:t ‘m
il I
i II I +%>

I II I 5?
COMPUTATION [W2) PLANE
vERTICAL “*GO*
FRACTURS
m!
-2!#
~ --x
!-+4

z’ SEALED LOWER
BOUNDARY
CIRCULAR EXTERIOR
BOUNDARY 1 @13313
/
,/su13HTLY
ExTERIOfl
ELLIPTICAL
EOUNOARY
NO SCALE
~$ 0’ --u
%

Fig. l—Schematic sketch of vertical fracture flow model. Fig. 2-Coordinate transformation of verticai
fracture modei.

626 JOURNALOF PETROLEUMTECHNOLOGY

mesh spacing is small where the higher-order deriv- TABLE 1-COMPARISON OF RESERVOIR PROPERTIES
ativesare relatively large, thus consistently keeping the WellA.1● Vi#&l;’ Well B
truncation error small. Orlglnsl Hu@hOtl”l
L
Another advantage of the form of Eq. 6 is that the ~;;~:t:~~?p::;::b ~’a —-x%i-
2684
190. 190
5000
195
computer program can solve a number of problems Porosity, fraotion 0.084 0084 0,10
Water saturation, fraction 0.:; O.:j 0
that conformably ,map into the computational plane Nat pay, ft
~a; gravity, fraction
with the same boundary conditions. To solve these 111,: 111.:
problems, it is necessary only to change the calcula- k: md 0.158 0,10 lZ
B (dlvlded by 0.92), W 5.87 X 10M 9.27 X 10~ —
tion of :he Jacobian. For example, the radial-flow *These data, along with the fiald data shown In Fig. 9, were taken
well problem can be solved by using the Jambian from Raf. 3.
● ●Tha adjusted data (k and p) were used to fit tha flald date with

J(u, v)=e’”rwz , . . .
which represents the usual logarithmic transforma-
tion. For the purpose of checking the computer pro-
gram, Eq. 8 was used to solve radial-flow drawdown
problems. The results checked with analytical solu-
tions and with one-dimensional numerical Solutions.s
In particular, this method of checking the program
was essential for turbulent flow since no published
solutions exist for the fracture case.
Results of Simulation
Liquid Case Analogy
The basic solutions for early-time and intermediate-
time transient flow are well known, At early times the
system behaves as though all flow were normal to the
face of the fracture. This is the linear flow period. If
the nonlinear effects of Eq. 1 were not important the
solution of the linear flow period would be
the model.
. . . (8)
for the liquid case, we then raise the question of the
applicability of this theory to the real gas caae. The
best way to answer this question is by analyzing the
numerical results. For the numerical solution, hypo-
thetical Well B was used. The properties of Well B
are given in Table 1.
Red Gas Solutions
The first solutions consider constant-rate drawdown
without the effects of turbulence or wellbore storage.
The ~damterm is taken to be zero throughout this
paper. Fig, 3 shows several cases with drawdown vs
in t plotted (the usual drawdown plot). The dimen-
sionless time is based on the known wellbore radius,
rw.
These plots show that the fractures can be inter-
preted as negative skin effects for the various fracture
lengths. If desired, these plots can be normalized to
plot on a single curve by using a dimensionless time

The dimensionless variables are defined in the No-

menclature. The dimensionless time is given in terms
of rWbut could have been expressed in terms of L. WELLB
The skin effect, which is shown in the second term, q~ = 0.01
results from damage to the formation at the fracture 14 r~ / rW “ 3,0!X
face. It is assumed in Eq. 9 tkdt the damage region is
close enough to the fracture face that the flow has . L/r_ = 4
stabilized. 12 ● L/rW = 10
After a period of time the transient flow changes a L/rw = 20
from linear to radial. The flow around the wellbore
stabilizes and the fractured well behaves as a well v L/r_ = 100
that has a large effective radius, rto’.This effective 10
radius is approximately equal to L/2 for a well in
-.
which the exterior boundary is sufficiently far from
the fracture.’-’ For the radial fbv period, the sohl- ‘: 8
tion would be ~
1 /
tnD(tD) = 1.1~ 10g tDr’) + 0.4045 + Sf,.c + &f~~,
6 - .
. . . . . . . . . . (lo)
if nonlinear effects could be neglected. The damage
skin effect, ~dm, has the same value as in Eq. 9. The
4 –
sf,.. term is the “negative skin effect” resulting tkom
the presence of the fracture. Its value is approximately
.
sf~.s~ =ln* . . . . . ...(n) 2 -

At longer times the effects of the exterior boundary I I * 1,

will stabilize to pseudo steady-state flow. Open-flow 0 2 8 10
potential tests — in terms of M(P) — can be used for log to
this type of flow, but we will not discuss this here.
Fig. 3-Effect of fracture iength on constant-rate
Having described the linear and radial flow periods drawdown.

MAY, 1969 627

based on L or rW’.From the usual skin effect analysis, LO
I I
it is possible to fmd L from a drawdown test,* when
sd~~= O. If &j.~# O,its value can be estimated from
the linear flow data ( ~~ plot): at the t‘= Ointercept,
which is extrapolated from the straight line of the v~ =
=
0.1

plot, ~dam is equal to the dimensionless pressure drop. ED WELL B

This can be seen from Eq. 9. Then L can be found ● Q. “ 1.0

by applying Eqs. 10 and 11 to the log t plot for the ● q. . 0.01

radial flow period. 0.01-
Numerous computer runs were conducted to test
the nonlinearity of the radial flow period, Unlike the
slope for true radial flow,617the slope of the radial
flow period tends to be too low in a fractured well.
Fig. 4—Early solutions of constant-rate drawdown in a
The kh computed from a well test would tend to be fractured well,
correspondingly high. This effect is rate dependent
and becomes rather significant at very high rates.
Lo
Cases were simulated at practical flow rates in which I I I

this error reached almost 10 percent. That is, the Ah

that would have been calculated from the drawdown
.-
test would have been almost 10 percent higher than
the true value. So the plot maybe misleading, The ~; -0
=
0.1 -

plot will be used later in the paper and ordinarily E“

waL B
should be used to obtain quantitative test results. ● t . 10,LWI
\

Log-Log Plots 0.01 -

A plot of log of pressure drop vs log t can be a useful

tool for qualitatively analyzing transient behavior 10 10z 10’ ,34 ,0$
(see Fig. 4). The different flow regimes can some- Ii
times be recognized by the shape and slope of the Fig. S-Effect of wellbore storage on early solutions of
curve. A plot of flow that is dominated by wellbore constant.rate drawdown in a fractured wall,
storage is a straight line with a slope of 1.0 (see Fig.
5). A plot of flow that is dominated by linear flow
is a straight line with a slope of 0.5. A plot of the
radial flow period is a gradually curving line, Exam- WELL B

ples of linear flow data on a log-log plot are shown

in Fig. 4.
WellboreStorage
14 I L=4. Oft
rw = 0.33 ft

One would not expect wellbore storage to be so im-

portant in fractured wells as it is in wells with low
flow capacities. The pressure drawdown responds
slower in fractured wells and the wellbore storage
/
effect tends to die out during the early flow.
Fig. 5 shows a simulation of an extreme case of /
wellbore storage in a fractured well. In this case the
wellbore storage effect obscures the linear flow period “ /
and the wellbore storage solution grades directly into 1’‘/
the radial solution. To detect this type of flow, the
log-log plot migk be helpful. Numerical results for
other cases show that the end of the wellbore storage
effect, at fDto’$
canbe approximated by
rw~ 2
tw’=6
()~ . . . . . (12)

when the wellbore storage soluticn grades into the

linear flow period.
TurbulentFlow
The most interesting effect studied was that of turbu-
lent flow. The effect of turbulence on either the linear “o 2 4 6 8 . 10
or radial flow periods is much too complicated for log t ~
analytical solutions. The numerical technique de- Fig; 6-Effect of turbulence on constant:rate drawdown
scribed in Appendix A was specially designed to ..
fcr a fractured well.

6%” JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHiOIXX3Y ,

model accurately the turbulence in a fractured well.
Some representative numerical solutions are shown
in Fig. 6. The solutions reach a straight line (on the
radial In t plot), after which the turbulence behaves
like a skin effect. The amount of the turbulent skin
effect, s,.,,, depends on the flcjwrate. There is also a
slight dependence of ~~.~bon the gas viscosity near
the wellbore. This viscosity effect causes the slope of
the in t drawdown curve to be too high, just as in the
truly radial case, and can lead to an erroneously low
computed value of kh.
A method of correlating the value of s,.,~ with the
physical properties of the system is useful. From nu-
merical results, it was determined that an accurate
approximation is
s~”~b= 0.92 D(p)g . . . .
The value of D(P) is exactly the same as the truly
radial case except rw’ (equal to L./2) is substituted
for rw. This substitution was suggested by M.illheim
and Clchowicz,s but the factor of 0.92 is an empirical
result of our numerical solutions.
Turbulence tends to prolong the time required to
reach the straight-line portion of the drawdovm curve.
This time (the beginning of stabilized turbulence) can
be approximated by t~~s 100 or by
t(hr) = 4 ~ lo, —.. +PCLZ .. (14)
k
Turbulence takes an interesting and rather unex-
pected form for the earlier linear flow period. The
turbulence never stabilizes, unlike in the radial case.
This much can be deduced by integrating Eq. 4 for
steady-state flow. The numerical results of Fig. 7
show that the turbulence solutions are straight lines
on the ~~ plot. The effect of turbulence keeps in-
creasing until the flow departs from the linear pattern.
The solutions for three different /3-factors are
shown ra&ating from the origin in Fig. 7. These tur-
bulence solutions plot as straight lines parallel with
the laminar solution on a log-log plot. There does not
seem to be a straightforward method for correlating
the slopes of Fig. 7. It is important to recognize, how-
ever, that the turbulence causes the slopes to be too
high, so that when this slope is used to determine the
fracture length, the calculated fracture length will be
too small.
Discussion of Well Test Application
A detailed description of a method of analyzing draw-
down tests for fractured gas wells was given by Mill-
heim and Cichowicz.s Their analysis was based on
ideal gas equations. The conversion to real gas flow,
in terms of m (p), is straightforward, Although we do
. (13) not recommend any fundamental departures from
their method, there are several points to be brought
out that might possibly prevent misinterpretation of
field data.
Duration of Linear and Radial HOW
The same problems arise in choosing the proper
straight-line portion of a ~~plot as arise in choosing
the proper straight-line portion of a In t plot. With
imperfect field data, one can sometimes fmd several
regions that seem to be straight lines. To locate the
proper straight lines, it is helpful to know where the
~Tstraight line occurs with relation to the in t straight
line.
Fig. 8 shows the ~; plot and the In t plot on the
same graph. These data are taken from Russell and
Truitt,’ Notice that there is a rather long transition
period between the linear flow and the radial flow.
For this basic case, the transition period occurs when
0.065< TD’ <1.0 . . . . . . (15a)

log t ok
1.21 -d -2 0
.- 2 4
1 I 1 I / 1 I
WELLB t I I I I I I 1 I
L=4
2.0 -
q= 13.94 MSCF/D/FT
Lo -
+

+
0.8 -

e
= 0
n 0.6 =
E
: ].0

0.4“

0.2 -

o 1 2 3 4 5 6
o 0.7
0.1 0.2 0.3
6’ Jr0”4 ‘“5 0“6

Fig. 7—Turbulence during linear flow period for Fig. 8-Linear and radial flow periods for a fractured wall
various rates. (from Ref. 1).

MAY, 1969 629

and 2, The stabilized turbulence can be directly related
0.45< rnD(tD) <1.10 . . . . . (15b) to the effective wellbore radius, r,,’ of a fractured well.
The second relationship is important: the pressure 3. The proper relationship between the radial flow
drop is over twice as great at the beginning of the period and the linear flow period should be kept in
radial flow period as at the end of the linear flow mind in analyzing field data. The transition between
period. If this relationship is not kept in mind, the these periods is rather long and can be misinterpreted
transition period could easily be mistaken for the as being the linear flow period.
4, It is likely that turbulence within the fracture
linear flow period on the ~;plot, Fig. 8 demonstrates
itself is sometimes more important than turbulence
how straight t-histransition period appears. Once the within the formation,
proper straight line has been located on the In t plot,
5. It is sometimes useful to match complicated
this information can be used to locate the proper well performance with a computer model to deter-
straight line on the ~; plot, Appendix B shows an mine flow parameters.
example of a field case in which the interpretation of
the ~;plot is difficult. Nomenclature
isothermal compressibility, psi-l
Natureof Turbulence
So far we have referred to turbulence as though it v.
wellbore storage constant,
occurs entirely in the formation, If this is the case 2m#hr,,Z
the turbulence effect should be directly correlatable to turbulence term coefficient (Mscf/D) -i
the formation turbulence factor, ~. This factor is cor- formation ‘tickness, ft
related with k and + as shown in Ref. 8, If the /3 Jacobian Gicoordinate transformation
computed from a well test is drastically higher than permeability to gas, md
the k, + correlation indicates, one might suspect that one-half fracture length. See Fig. 2.
something other than the formation itself is contribu- real gas pseudo pressure, Eq. 2, psiz/cp
ting to the turbulence. dimensiordess real gas pseudo pressure
The model we have used does not include the flow
in the fracture itself. In actual cases there is a high 1.987 X 105~ kh ‘i;%
likelihood that turbulence will occur as the gas flows P,cT
down’ the fracture toward the wellbore. Extremely index number of exterior boundary
high velocities are attained in the fracture if the entire mesh point
production rate from a fractured well is “funnelled” pressure, psi
through a narrow fracture. The Reynolds numbers in flow rate, Mscf/D
the fracture can be thousands of times greater than in skin effect
the formation, The amount of turbulence that occurs time, hr
in the fracture depends on the width of the fracture
and the properties of the propping agent. The field 0,000264 h
dimensionless time,
examples given in Ref. 3 showed calculated ~’s that @cL2
were about 100 times as great as those given in the 0,000264 kc
correlation in Ref. 8. This indicates that most of the dimensionless time,
@crw2
reported turbulence might have been occurring in the
fracture rather than in the formation, formation temperature, ‘R
computation space coordinate
ComplicatedField Cases computation space coordinate
There are so many parameters involved in analyzing macroscopic gas velocity
a fractured gas well test, that interpretation can often wellbore volume, cu ft
be complicated. This is especially true if turbulence gas deviation factor
occurs and the duration of the testis not long enough turbulence parameter, ft-’. See Ref. 3
to give good data for the radial flow period. It is for equation.
helpful to use computer simulation to match the data turbulence coefficient, E@.3
in these cases. The parameters of the model are ad- gas viscosity, cp
justed until a good match is obtained. An example gas density
of this type of data-matching is given in Appendix B. formation porosity, fraction
This example case was extremely difiicult to analyze
without using the modeling technique. Acknowledgments
We should like to thank the National Science Foun-
Conclusions dation and Stanford U. for tinancial support during
The results of this study have led to the following this work.
inclusions:
1. The drawdown testing method for vertically References
fractured wells can readily be extended to the real gas 1. Russell, D. G, and Truitt, N. E.: ‘Transient Pressure Be-
havior in Vertically Fractured Reservoirs”, J, Pet. Tech.
case by using the m(p) function. At high rates, how- (Oct., 1964) 1159-1170. -
ever, the calculated IA will tend to be too high in the 2. Clark, K, K.: “Transient Pressure Testing of Fractured
absence of turbulence. Water Injection Wells”, J. Pet. Tech. (June, 1968) 639-643.

630 JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY

3. Millheim, Keith K. and Cichowicz, Leo: “Testing and
Analyzing Low-Permeability Fractured (3ss Wells”, J, Pet.
Tech, (Feb., 1968) 193-198.
4, Prats, M,: “The Effects of Vertical Fractures on Reservoir
Behavior — Incompressible Fluid Case”, Sot, Pet, Eng,J.
(June, 1961 ) 10S-118.
5. Wattenbarger, Robert A. and RameY,H. J., Jr.: “Gaswell
Testing With Turbulence, Damage and Wellbore Storage”,
J. Pet, Tech, (Aug., 1968) 877-887.
6. A1-Huwainy, R,, Ramey, H, J., Jr,, and Crawford, P. B.:
“The Flow of Real Gases Through Porous Media”, 1. Pet.
Tech. (May, 1966) 624-636.
7, Wattenbargerj Robert A.: “Effects of Turbulence, Well-
bore Damage, Wellbore Storage? and Vertical Fractures
on Gas Well Testing”, PhD Dmertation, Stanford U,,
Stanford, Calif. (1967).
8, Katz, D. L,, Cornell, D., Kobayashi, R., Pcettmann, F. H.,
Vary, J. A., Elenbaas, J, R. and Weinaug, C. F.: Hand-
bmk oj Nafuraf Gas Engineering, McGraw-Hill Book Co.,
Inc., New York (1959).
APPENDIX A
The finite-difference equations were developed from
the viewpoint of discretizing a continuous function,
m (u, v, t), rather than from the “cell” approach.
Often both derivations lead to the same result. In this
case they do not, The present derivation allowed the
model to have second-order accuracy throughout the
u, v space, including the boundary conditions. It was
particularly important to have a high-order derivative
approximation at the wellbore during the early flow
period and during turbulent flow.
Eq, 6 was put in an implicit finite-difference form.
Using the usual notation, the finite-difference eciua-
tion can be written for the point i, j as
To compute the nordine~r coefficient, 8, a simplify-
ing assumption was made. It was assumed that the
magnitude of the velocity vector in Eq. 4 was equal
to the magnitude of the velocity component in the
direction for which 8 was being computed. This as-
sumption is not physically correct because 8 is not
directional. However, since the u, v coordinates were
selected so the stabilized flow is along the u coordi-
nate, the assumption is nearly correct. The u-com-
ponent velocity is very nearly equal to the total
velocity vector, making the calculation of the u-direc-
tion gradient accurate. There is very little flow along
the v dmection, making the vdirection gradient rela-
tively unimportant.
The no-flow boundary conditions were approxi-
mated with reflection equations of the type
MN+I,J =mw-l, j . . . . .. . (A-2)
The gradient at the wellbore was approximated by
a three-point formula of second-order accuracy. For
MAY, 1%9
any trial solution, the integral in Eq. 5Cwas evaluated
by
3 t?%,
j (m,, j–m,, j) – &,,, j(rt2, j–ml, j)
2Au
. . . . . . . . . . (A-3)
The coefficients A ~ are selected to give a high-order
integration according to Bode’s rule.7
The computation procedure for each time step was
as follows: ( 1) guess a well pressure that applies to
the entire interior boundary, (2) solve the resulting
matrix equation, (3) calculate the corresponding rate
according to Eqs. SC and A-3. If the computed rate
is within 1 percent of the required rate, the solution
is acceptable; otherwise, the process must be repeated
with another guess of well pressure. The nonlinear
coefficients were re-evaluated at the n+ 1 time Ievel
each time the process was repeated.
Several techniques were tried for solving the matrix
equation.7 The alternating direction iterative proce-
dure (ADIP) and line successive over-relaxation
(LSOR) were the most successful. LSOR, which was
preferred because of its simplicity in usage, was satis-
factory only when the lines of simultaneous solution
were taken in the u-direction. When these lines were
taken in the v-direction, the solutions were very er-
roneous and tended to drift away from the correct
solutions, in spite of the fact that a reasonable con-
vergence criterion was met.
A peculiar problem was encountered with early-
time solution. Due to the ditliculty in approximating
the gradient of the linear-flow solution with our net-
work of “imbedded parabolas” (inherent in the finite-
differer.m method), the first few time steps would
give pressure drops that were too high. This errone-
ous solution would continue at almost constant pres-
sure until this pressure coincided with the proper
solution; then the remaining time steps gave proper
solutions. This erroneous early solution was found to
be dependent on u-direction mesh spacing. Correct
earlier solutions could be obtained by a su5cient
reduction in mesh spacing. This same sort of problem
was experienced by Russell and Truitt.l They resorted
to the analytical solutions of these early times, We
used a linear finite-difference model for the results
shown in Fig. 7.
APPENDIX B
Millheim and CichowiczSpresented field data for two
gas well tests. These data included plots of several
drawdown tests for each well. The drawdown tests
were conducted at different rates to evaluate the tur-
bulence effects. From these data, they used their meth-
od of analysis to calculate the flow parameters, /3, L,
and k. Fig. 9 shows their teat data for the highest flow
rate on Well A-1, in terms of m(p). Table 1 gives
some data that they reported for Well A-1.
We used the computer model to simulate the be-
631
 log I - days ‘ adjusted still more in other parameters to match the
4 -3 -2 -1
I 1 f f
0
I
I
I
2
data. However, the closeness of the k = 0.10 md run
?. 5 - b ● Fueld OatA Rd. 3 seems to indicate clearly that the well’s permeability
a
—— hkjjel win Or,$nal Parameters i Table II
‘1
is lower than originally calculated.
z
— h!adel wlh Adjusted P8raMelel$ [Table I) A study of Fig. 9 gives a feeling for the complexity
: ?.0
z‘t q , 2955 hE.CF I D
i of analyzing this type of test data. Although the
-- !
method of analysis is valid, it seems that the original
-.
=
.
1.5
I [ARI.Y

‘Low
RAOIAL

‘fR’Y . / /
/

4
straight lines for both the linear and radial flow per-
iods were in error. The linear flow period ends at
about 4 hours. The rest of the ~~ plot is a transition
period (although it appears to be a straight line, just
as in Fig. 8). The slope of the adjusted model is the

“’0”5L2KzcE5!E_l
o 1 2 3
—
./i -
4-
hours
Fig. 9-Matching field data with model to determhe
proper system parameters,
havior of Well A-1. First, the model parameters were
taken from Ref. 3 to see if these parameters described
the pressure data that wore observed. Fig. 9 shows a
serious disagreement bet ween the model data and the
field data. This disagreement was taken to imply that
the parameters used did not truly describe the well.
The model was then adjusted to use k = 0.10 md
rather than k = 0.158. To make the computation
consistent, /3 was adjusted inversely to k. ‘Thisadjust-
ment yields the same turbulence ~s the original
parameters.
Fig. 9 shows that the model simulates the field data
fairly well after the permeability is lowered. Through-
out the duration of the test, the model solution lies
below the actual data by a wmstant amount. This
difference is due to a value of ~crs~that was present
in the well but that was not included in the model.
Otherwisee the model fits the data fairly well through-
out the test. We point out. that the model might be
5 6 7 8
same as the field data for this linear period. For radial
flow, the flow period shown on the log t plot is before
the proper radial straight Iine occurs. Since it was
clearly established that significant turbulence was oc-
curring in this well, the beginning of the straight line
is given by Eq. 14. This indicates that the proper
straight line does not begin until long after the test is
over. The “straight line”, which occurs at log ts O,
is in a period that is effeeted by transient turbulent
behavior (see Fig. 6) and has a slope that does not
properly reflect the formation kh.
It seems that almost all of the data shown in Fig. 9
are in a transition period between linear and radial
flow. This behavior makes accurate well-test analysis
difficult. Simulating well tests with the computer
model in this manner seems to be a practical method
of checking interpretation and adjusting parameters
to fit the observed data. The computation costs are
vexy small. iTPT
Original manuscript received Aug. 6, 1968. Revised manuscript
receivad Feb. 20, 1969. Paper (SPE 2165) was presented at SPE
43rd Annual Fall Meeting held in Houston, Tex., SePt. 29.Ott. 2,
196* and at SPE 39th Annual Cellfomla Regional Fall Meeting
held In Bakersfield, CalIf., Nov. 7% 196& @ Copyright 1969 AmerL
can Institute ef Mlrdng, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineer%
Inc.
This paper wIII ba printed In Transactions volume 246, which
will cover 1969.

632 JOURNALOF PETROLEUMTECHNOLOGY