2013 - CILAMCE - Finite Element Modeling of The Hydraulic Fracture Problem in Impermeable Media Using A Cohesive Zone Model

FINITE ELEMENT MODELING OF THE HYDRAULIC FRACTURE
PROBLEM IN IMPERMEABLE MEDIA USING A COHESIVE ZONE

MODEL
Bendezu, Marko A. L.
Carvalho, Eulher C.
Roehl, Deane
Romanel, Celso
markini@tecgraf.puc-rio.br
eulher@tecgraf.puc-rio.br
deane@tecgraf.puc-rio.br
romanel@puc-rio.br
Tecgraf Institute and Civil Engineering Department
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio).
Rua Marquês de São Vicente, 225, Gávea, 22453-900, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
Abstract. Hydraulic fracturing is a process mainly used in the Petroleum Industry for the
stimulation of wells. The full 3D numerical simulation of the hydraulic fracturing process is
of great importance for the efficient and safe application of this technique. However it is also
a great challenge because of the strong nonlinear coupling between the viscous fluid flow and
fracture propagation. A finite element model based on cohesive finite elements has been
developed to simulate the propagation of the hydraulic fracture in impermeable elastic and
elastic-plastic media. Fracture propagation is governed by a cohesive zone model (traction-
separation law) and the flow within the fracture by the lubrication equation. In order achieve
good results an important issue is the finite element mesh. Comparisons between mesh
transitions in the cohesive finite element model have been investigated. Excellent agreement
was obtained between the numerical results and analytical asymptotic solutions for the
limiting cases where the propagation regime is dominated by rock fracture toughness. Also,
penny-shaped hydraulic fractures are assessed.
Keywords: hydraulic fractures, cohesive zone model, finite element method, petroleum
geomechanics, mesh transition.
CILAMCE 2013
Proceedings of the XXXIV Iberian Latin-American Congress on Computational Methods in Engineering
Z.J.G.N Del Prado (Editor), ABMEC, Pirenópolis, GO, Brazil, November 10-13, 2013
Finite Element Modeling of the Hydraulic Fracture Problem in an Impermeable Medium using CZM
1 INTRODUCTION
Hydraulic fracturing is a technique for stimulating hydrocarbon reservoir, determination

of in-situ stresses in rock, magma driven fracture, preconditioning rock for caving or inducing
rock to cave in mining, and for underground disposal of toxic or radioactive waste. Hydraulic
fracturing in rocks takes place when the fluid pressure within the rock exceeds the smallest
principal stress plus the tensile strength of the rock, resulting in tensile failure or rock
splitting. A hydraulic fracture may be initiated by natural, geological processes in the earth
whereby the fluid pressure increases and/or the smallest principal stress decreases. Artificial
or man-made hydraulic fractures in petroleum activities are normally initiated in a wellbore
interval when it is pressurized with viscous fluid at pumping rates high enough to initiate and
propagate a tensile fracture. Once the fracture is created, it is packed with proppant (material
like sand) to prevent closure after the hydraulic pressure is released. The created propped
fracture provides a highly conductive path for the flow of hydrocarbons towards the well.
New applications of hydraulic fracturing have been recently found in geotechnical
engineering.
Most hydraulic fracturing simulators are based on analytical methods or numerical
methods relying on linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM). For hard rocks, for which
brittle fracture prevails, these models give results which are in good agreement with in field
observation. For ductile rocks or under high stress conditions of confinement, however, these
simulators provide conservative results. Modeling is usually carried out prior to fracturing in
order to optimize the treatment for maximum efficiency, because hydraulic fracturing is
intrinsically a three dimensional nonlinear coupled problem, where fluid flow and its
diffusion into the rock formation, fracture propagation and inelastic rock deformation are
mechanisms to be described by the model. The optimized parameters include the fracture
length and width, fluid design and pumping schedule.
One reason for this is the fact that for the ductile behavior of rock, the fracture process is
associated with the development of a region around the crack tip that presents plastic
deformation prior to fracture propagation. This region, called the fracture process zone, has
two nonlinear deformation regions: a localized region characterized by softening behavior of
the material, and another region where the perfect plasticity or even plastic hardening occurs
(Papanastasiou, 1999). For brittle materials, the plastic process zone is small, and the LEFM
is applicable. For ductile rocks, however, although the softening zone is still small, the plastic
process zone is not negligible and calls for the application of elastic-plastic fracture
mechanics.
The cohesive zone model (CZM), originally proposed by Barrenblatt (1962), has been
used to simulated hydraulic fracturing by Chen et al. (2009), Yao et al. (2010), Zhang et al.
(2010), Carvalho et al. (2010), Bendezu et al. (2011), Chen (2012) among others. With this
method, the deformations at the crack tip prior to fracture propagation are accounted for and
energy dissipation occurs in a finite region by a traction-separation law. As cited in
(Chen et al., 2009) the cohesive zone method not only provides more realistic results, but also
simplifies the issues of finite element modeling, once pre-determination of the crack tip is not
required. The fracture initiation and propagation are the natural solution of CZM.
As there are difficulties posed by modelling a fully 3-D hydraulic fracture, numerical
simulation still remains a particularly challenging problem. In this paper, a full fluid-solid
coupled finite element model is used to simulate the propagation of hydraulic fracturing in a
toughness dominated regime. Comparisons between mesh transitions have been applied in the
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Bendezu, M. A. L., Carvalho, E., Roehl, D. and Romanel, C.
simulation to verify the convergence of the problem. The effect of geostatic stresses in the
damage model is included. The influence of plasticity in the adjacent elements was also
analyzed, i.e. the rock is modeled by considering the elastic-plastic Mohr-Coulomb
constitutive behavior.
2 FINITE ELEMENT HYDRAULIC FRACTURE MODEL
The criterion for fracture propagation is usually given either by conventional energy
approach, which states that a fracture propagates when the energy release rate reaches a
critical value related to the critical stress intensity factor, or by the stress intensity approach,
which states that a fracture propagates when the stress intensity factor at the crack tip exceeds
the rock toughness. The most robust criterion for non-linear mechanics is described by the
cohesive zone constitutive model.
The bilinear cohesive law, as shown in Fig. 1, is adopted in this study and was presented
by Bendezu et al. (2011). The cohesive law can be described by two independent parameters
which are usually, for Mode-I plane strain, the normal work of separation or the fracture
energy GIC and either the tensile strength σd or the separation δC. An additional parameter in
these models is the slope of the initial loading which may define a range from rigid-softening
to elastic-softening response under tensile stress-state.
σ
σd GIC
Kn
δd δc δ
σo: horizontal in situ stress

σo
Figure 1. Bi-linear cohesive element traction-separation () law.

The crack opening criterion is governed by the fracture energy of the rock, which in a
CZM is equal to the area under the rock damage curve. For elastic material behavior, the
critical stress intensity factor KIC is related to GIC through the following relation:
K IC 2 1  2   c   d   d
GIC   (1)
E 2
where E is the Young modulus and ν is the Poisson ratio. The critical stress intensity factor
can be calculated from laboratory tests. For given values of the fracture toughness, and rock
tensile strength d, the stress-displacement law is uniquely defined. In addition, c is the
opening displacement for which the fracture strength (d) falls to zero and d is the critical
opening displacement to activate the material damage, being related to one another through
the expression:
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2GIC
c   d (2)
d
The initial cohesive stiffness (Kn) is given by:

d d2 
Kn   (3)
d 2 GIC
where  is a coefficient representing the behavior of the rock. Small values of  result in
cohesive elements with low initial stiffness (ductile rocks) and large values of  result in
cohesive elements with high stiffness (brittle rocks).
Damage initiation refers to the beginning of degradation of the response of a material
point. The process of degradation begins when:
 n s 
  max  , 0  1 (4)
 n  s 
0
where nands represent the normal and the shear tractions. n0 and s0 represent the peak
values of the nominal stress when the deformation is either purely normal to the interface or
purely in shear.
The damage evolution law describes the rate at which the material stiffness is degraded
once the corresponding initiation criterion is reached. In the post-peak softening regime the
cohesive constitutive relation is given by:
1  D   n , n 0
n   . (5)
 n , n 0
 s  1  D   s . (6)
where  n and  s are the normal and shear stresses corresponding to the openings  n and  s ,
respectively, assuming that the material had not suffered previous damage.
For linear softening, the damage variable is calculated by the following equation (Turon
et al., 2006):
 c  m   d 
D (7)
 m  c   d 
where  m is the maximum effective relative displacement in the cohesive element during the
treatment history.
The fluid constitutive response comprises: tangential flow within the gap and normal
flow across the gap (Fig. 2). In order to avoid this complex fluid behavior, a simple
appropriate model for fluid flow in a fracture is embodied in the lubrication theory. It assumes
laminar flow (uniformly viscous Newtonian flow), the fluid is incompressible and it accounts
for the time dependent rate of crack opening. The continuity equation which imposes the
conservation of mass in one dimensional flow is (Boone and Ingraffea, 1990):
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dqt dw
  ql  0 (8)
dx dt
where qt is the local flow rate along the fracture in direction x, ql is the local fluid loss in the
rock formation and w is the crack opening. Equation (8), which accounts for the fluid leak-off
from the fracture surface into the rock formation, can be used to determine the local flow rate
q.
Crack
opening
Normal
qt  Tangencial
flow
ql  flow
q= =q
Figure 2. The flow patterns of the pore fluid in cohesive elements.
The second equation is derived from the conservation of momentum balance. For a flow
between parallel plates, the lubrication equation, which relates the pressure gradient to the
fracture width with smoothly varying aperture, is laminar for a Newtonian fluid of viscosity μ,
(Boone and Ingraffea 1990) i.e.,
w3
qt   p (9)
12 
where p denotes the fluid pressure. Equation (9) determines the pressure profile along the
fracture for the local width and local flow rate. According to Eq. (9), the pressure gradient and
hence the solution, is very sensitive to the fracture width. The effect of leak-off from the
fracture surface into the rock formation is left to a further study.
3 FINITE ELEMENT SIMULATION
The finite element software ABAQUS/Standard (ABAQUS, 2011) was used in the
analysis. The axisymmetric penny-shaped fluid-driven fracture in an infinite impermeable
rock is simulated. The mesh is composed of axisymmetric six-node quadratic elements for the
rock formation and of axisymmetric six-node cohesive elements having both displacements
and pore pressure as degrees of freedom. The initially unopened fracture is represented by an
embedded array of cohesive zone elements along the entire fracture path. These elements are
initially closed.
The fracture is opened and extended hydraulically by the fluid injection. There is no fluid
leak-off through the impermeable surfaces of the fracture, so only the flow along the fracture
is modeled. To allow initial flow the cohesive elements at the injection point are preset as
initially open.
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The simulation is performed under the following assumptions:

i) The fracture propagates in an infinite impermeable linear elastic medium. Body forces
are neglected;
ii) The fracturing fluid is incompressible and Newtonian, and the flow is given by
lubrication theory;
iii) Leak-off of the fracturing fluid from the fracture into the surrounding medium is
neglected;
iv) The fluid front is taken to coincide with the cohesive crack tip. No fluid lag is
considered;
v) The problem is stationary.
4 MESHING SCHEME
To guarantee solution convergence, the mesh in the cohesive zone must be fine enough,
while the mesh in the far field can be coarse in order to reduce total number of unknowns in
the finite element model which otherwise may require a large amount of memory and may
significantly increase CPU time. In the modelling of 3-D hydraulic fractures, this issue is
much more significant.
To meet the above-mentioned requirement, two meshing schemes, as shown in Fig. 3, can
be used to connect the cohesive element to neighbouring elements. In the first case (Fig. 3a),
the discretization level in the cohesive zone is much finer than the discretization level in the
adjacent zone, with the mesh in the cohesive zone not matched to the mesh of the adjacent
components. The top and bottom faces of the cohesive elements are tied to the surrounding
components by using a surface-based tie constraint. In the second case (Fig. 3 b), the cohesive
zone and the adjacent neighbouring zone have the same discretisation level so that the
cohesive elements can naturally share nodes with the elements on the adjacent rock,
facilitating the transition from the fine mesh zone (near fracture field) to the coarse mesh zone
(far field).
To build these meshing schemes a special mesh generator was developed. Previous
analysis has shown that a tie constraint may increase significantly the CPU time. Another
shortcoming is the deformation and fluid pressure distribution within the cohesive elements
being constrained by the coarse adjacent element to which they are tied, supporting only a
linear variation of displacement along the crack. The accuracy of the solution is dominated by
the size of the coarse adjacent elements, rather than by the size of the cohesive elements. So,
the mesh transition is much more efficient and is therefore used in this study.
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(a) By surface-based tie constraint (b) By sharing nodes

Figure 3. Connecting the cohesive elements (red one) to the neighbouring components (blue one).
Figure 4 shows the meshing schemes of the axisymmetric model. The fluid is injected at
the center of the fracture. The color grading indicates the pore pressure within the opened
fracture. The solid elements remain white, because in the model the fracture is impermeable.
2 1
(a) by using surface-based tie constrains (b) by sharing nodes
Figure 4. Meshing schemes of the axisymmetric model.
5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
In this section we present sample results for hydraulically driven fractures inelastic and
elasto-plastic media to show the efficiency of the model and to evaluate the capability of the
mesh transition. Comparisons with analytical solutions are presented in the section 5.1 for
toughness-dominated hydraulic fracture. Then, to understand the damage model process, the
effect of in-situ stress field is studied in the section 5.2 by varying the minimum in-situ stress.
Finally, the effect of the rock cohesion using the Mohr Coulomb constitutive behavior is
investigated in the section 5.3.
5.1 Comparison with analytical solution

The propagation of a hydraulic fracture in impermeable media is governed by two
competing dissipative mechanisms (Detournay, 2004):
i) One the flow process is characterized by fluid viscosity and injection rate; and
ii) The other is the fracture process characterized by rock toughness.
For toughness-dominated hydraulic fracture propagation, the viscous dissipation is so
small that it is negligible compared to the energy consumed in rock fracturing. The capability
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of a cohesive zone model to simulate a toughness-dominated hydraulic fracture is investigated

by comparing both the numerical results and the analytical asymptotic solution (Savitski and
Detournay, 2002).
The parameters on which the numerical computations were based are given in Table 1.
These parameters include the rock properties and the pumping parameters. The properties of
the cohesive zone include the uniaxial tensile strength, the fracture energy which is the area
under the traction-separation curve calculated to meet an equivalent fracture toughness and
initial cohesive stiffness. Those parameters were taken from (Chen et al., 2009).
Table 1: Input parameters for the computational examples
Variable Value
Rock properties
Young modulus, E (MPa) 30
Poisson ratio, ν 0.2
Pumping parameters
Viscosity, μ (kPa·s) 1·10-6
Constant Injection rate, q (m3/s) 0.001
Cohesive zone properties
Uniaxial tensile strength, d (MPa) 2
Critical stress intensity factor, KIC (MPa) 1
Fracture energy, GIC (N/m) 32
Initial cohesive stiffness, Kn (kPa/m) 3.125·109
The simulation results for the penny-shaped hydraulic fracture are shown in Fig. 5,
considering the crack radius, crack opening displacement and injection pressure by the
cohesive finite element model for a toughness-dominated hydraulic fracture. The
corresponding results obtained with the so-called K-vertex solution, i.e. the zero toughness
solution (see Savitski and Detournay, 2002) are also shown for comparison. It can be seen
that the cohesive finite element model produces satisfactory predictions to model the
toughness-dominated penny-shaped hydraulic fracture.
The profiles of dimensionless crack opening and dimensionless net pressure are shown in
Fig. 6. The corresponding results for the K-vertex solution are also shown in Fig. 6. The FEM
results are valid for any time. These graphics are good because they show the results
regardless of the parameters adopted, where ρ is the scaled radius (0 ≤ ρ ≤ 1). The model is
able to produce satisfactory predictions.
Figure 7 shows more results of the same analysis considering different instants (5 s, 10 s
and 20 s). The crack opening profile (Fig. 7a) gives us a good idea of the required volume to
propagate a fracture in a given time. In addition, the pressure profile in the fracture is shown
in the Fig. 7b. The fluid front position is found to be at the point where the fluid pressure
changes sign or falls to zero. It was assumed in these computations that the formation domain
and the process zone are impermeable and the pressure drop takes place mainly at the visual
tip for these specific parameters. Higher pressure is needed in the beginning of the
propagation. Finally, Fig. 7c shows the distribution of the cohesive stress (stress transferred
normal to the propagation direction) ahead of the fractures. . Its maximum value are expected
to be equal the tensile rock strength (T = 2 MPa, as shown in Fig. 8), however, this value was
slightly below (near to 1.89 MPa), as shown in the Fig. 7c. This behaviour is not clear yet.
During the fracturing process there is a relief of the compressive stresses (in this case is zero)
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ahead of the fracture tip, followed by a complete separation when the crack opening reaches
the critical value defined in the propagation criterion.
It is worth remembering, that other cohesive crack models (for example: exponential
softening) generates a much longer process. The initial cohesive stiffness also has an
important influence in the size of the generated process zone in hydraulic fracturing. For
example, for softening models, wider fractures are generated and, due to that, higher pressures
are needed to propagate a cohesive crack.
8.0 0.40
Fracture opening [mm]

Analytical (K-vertex solution)
Fracture radius [m]
FEM - CZM
6.0 0.30
4.0 0.20
2.0 0.10
FEM - CZM
0.0 0.00
0.0 4.0 8.0 12.0 16.0 20.0 0.0 4.0 8.0 12.0 16.0 20.0
Time [s] Time [s]
(a) evolution of crack radius (b) crack opening
3.0
Injection pressure [MPa]
2.5 FEM - CZM
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
0.0 4.0 8.0 12.0 16.0 20.0
Time [s]
(c) injection pressure
Figure 5. Comparison of results FEM and analytical solution for a penny-shaped hydraulic fracture.
1.00 1.00
Analytical (K-vertex solution) Analytical (K-vertex solution)
FEM-CZM
0.80 0.80 FEM - CZM
Crack opening, 
Net pressure, 
0.60 0.60
0.40 0.40
0.20 0.20
0.00 0.00
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
 
(a) dimensionless crack opening (b) dimensionless net pressure
Figure 6. Finite element model and analytical results.
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0.20 0.60
Crack opening [mm]

0.16
Net pressure [MPa]

0.40
0.12
0.08
0.20
0.04
t=5s 10 s 20 s t=5s 10 s 20 s
0.00 0.00
0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0
r [m] r [m]
(a) crack opening profile (b) net pressure inside the fracture
2.00
Cohesive stresses [MPa]
1.60
t=5s 10 s 20 s
1.20
0.80
0.40
0.00
0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0
r [m]
(c) distribution of cohesive stresses ahead of the fracture

Figure 7. FEM results for different times of a penny-shaped hydraulic fracture.
5.2 Effect of the in-situ stress field

The solution does not depend on the far-field stress 3, which enters in the formulation
only as a reference stress. Therefore, the effect of in-situ stress field for the penny-shaped
hydraulic fracture was analyzed.
The in-situ stresses were inserted as initial stresses and by applying the equilibrium load
at both far right and top edges. The fracture will propagate along the axis-1 which is parallel
to the maximum in-situ stress 1 = 20 MPa (Fig. 4). At the top edge a value of 3 was applied
parallel to axis-3 as the minimum in-situ stress. Five cases were considered, varying the 3
values: 1, 2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10 MPa. The in-situ stresses and the initial conditions are applied in
the first step to achieve system equilibrium before propagation starts.
Due to the geostatic stress state the damage model is greatly affected, as shown in Fig. 8.
The Base Case was used in the previous analysis, which does not take into account the in-situ
stresses. The β coefficient representing the behavior of the rock (Bendezu et al., 2011), with a
value of 50 corresponds to the critical separation ratio used byChen et al. (2009) and
Carvalho et al. (2010), which has the value 0.02, and results in a high initial fracture stiffness
(brittle material).
The initial cohesive stiffness and the fracture energy are the same for all cases, but it
affected the damage initiation and degradation response of the material, changing the behavior
of the fracture, as shown in Fig. 9.
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4.0
2.0
0.0
T [MPa]
-2.0
Caso Base
-4.0 Caso 1 - ' = 1.0 MPa
Caso 2 - ' = 2.5 MPa
-6.0 Caso 3 - ' = 5.0 MPa
Caso 4 - ' = 7.5 MPa
-8.0 Caso 5 - ' = 10. MPa
-10.0
0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0
 [m]
Figure 8. Traction-separation response for different values of geostatic stresses.
Figure 9 shows the fracture radius, crack opening displacement at the injection point and
the function of net pressure minimum in-situ stress, with means the difference between the
pore pressure and the in-situ stress. When the geostatic stress increases, the fracture
propagation decreases, favoring therefore fracture opening.
8.0 0.40
Fracture radius [m]
6.0 0.30
4.0 0.20
Analytical Analytical
Caso 1 - ' = 1.0 MPa Caso 1 - ' = 1.0 MPa
Caso 2 - ' = 2.5 MPa
2.0 0.10 Caso 2 - ' = 2.5 MPa
Caso 3 - ' = 5.0 MPa Caso 3 - ' = 5.0 MPa
Caso 4 - ' = 7.5 MPa Caso 4 - ' = 7.5 MPa
Caso 5 - ' = 10. MPa Caso 5 - ' = 10. MPa
0.0 0.00
0.0 4.0 8.0 12.0 16.0 20.0 0.0 4.0 8.0 12.0 16.0 20.0
Time [s] Time [s]
3.0
Analytical
Caso 1 - ' = 1.0 MPa
2.5
Net pressure [MPa]
Caso 2 - ' = 2.5 MPa

Caso 3 - ' = 5.0 MPa
2.0 Caso 4 - ' = 7.5 MPa
Caso 5 - ' = 10. MPa
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
0.0 4.0 8.0 12.0 16.0 20.0
Time [s]
Figure 9. Results FEM of effect minimum in situ stress for a penny-shaped hydraulic fracture.
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To understand the behavior at fracture initiation, Fig. 10 shows the evolution of the
minimum in-situ stress with time for the case 3 = 10 MPa. Thus, in the Figure 10, one can
see that the stresses, on the far-field boundary, change with the time (even in the beginning of
the analysis t = 0.1 s). Due to that, to consider the fracture propagation in an infinite medium
seems an appropriate choose. This could be solved using infinite elements or displacements
obtained from a Displacement Discontinuity singularity model to approximate the boundary
conditions at the outer boundary of the finite domain. Also the problem response at the
beginning of the analysis is very dependent on the time stepping, but adopting very small time
steps the computational expense increases.
’3 (kPa) ’3 (kPa)
2 1
t = 0.1 s t=4s
’3 (kPa) ’3 (kPa)
t = 10 s t = 20 s
Figure 10. Evolution of the minimum in-situ stress for the case 3 = 10 MPa.
5.3 The influence of plasticity in hydraulic fracturing

The rock deformation is modeled by the Mohr Coulomb flow theory of plasticity. In an
attempt to explain the observed high net pressures, Papanastasiou (1997) presented the first
results of his work on the influence of inelastic rock behavior in hydraulic fracturing. He
evaluated the rock dilation associated with frictional sliding, either along particles or along
micro-cracks. This process is described appropriately by the well-established theory of
plasticity, and the importance of plastic yielding also became a part of the investigation.
The analysis was carried out by varying the cohesion of the rock (adjacent elements from
fracture zone) from 400 kPa to 1000 kPa. A non-associative plastic behavior (ϕ ≠ ψ) with
rock friction angle ϕ = 30°, dilation angle ψ = 0° was considered.
Results of this parametric study are shown in Fig. 11. The behavior of the fracture
changes when yielding surface decreases due to cohesion. The rock friction angle is kept
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constant. The Base Case refers to linear elastic rock material. When the cohesion takes high
values, no change in the behavior of the fracture is observed because the rock
behaviorremains in the elastic range. For instance, for c > 1000 kPa, the rock presents very
small plastic strains.
8.0 1.00 Caso Base
Caso Base
c = 1000 kPa

c = 1000 kPa
0.80 c = 900 kPa
Fracture radius [m]
c = 900 kPa
6.0 c = 500 kPa
c = 500 kPa
c = 400 kPa
c = 400 kPa
0.60
4.0
0.40
2.0
0.20
0.0 0.00
0.0 4.0 8.0 12.0 16.0 20.0 0.0 4.0 8.0 12.0 16.0 20.0
Time [s] Time [s]
5.0
Caso Base
c = 1000 kPa
4.0
Net pressure [MPa]
c = 900 kPa
c = 500 kPa
c = 400 kPa
3.0
2.0
1.0
0.0
0.0 4.0 8.0 12.0 16.0 20.0
Time [s]
Figure 11. Results FEM of effect of cohesion of the rock for a penny-shaped hydraulic fracture.
Finally, Fig. 12 shows the parameters PEEQ associated with equivalent uniaxial plastic
strain. It is observed that by reduced cohesion is the plastic zone is larger.
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2 1
(a) cohesion’s rock, c = 900 kPa
2 1
(b) cohesion’s rock, c = 400 kPa
Figure 12. Plastic zone around the fracture t = 20 s.
6 CONCLUDING REMARKS
The full fluid-solid coupled finite element model for hydraulic fracturing has been
proposed to simulated hydraulic fracture propagation in toughness-dominated regime. The
issues of solution convergence in a cohesive finite element model was approached with two
meshing schemes. Mesh transition between the coarse mesh in the far-field and very fine
mesh in the vicinity of the fracture enables an accurate characterization of the near field
deformation and stresses in the vicinity of crack tip with less computational costs. The node
sharing technique, between the cohesive elements and adjacent elements, enables an accurate
description of fluid flow within the crack with high solution efficiency.
An excellent agreement between numerical results and analytical K-vertex solutions, for
penny-shaped hydraulic fractures, was obtained by using mesh transition. The effect of the in-
situ stresses is a factor controlling the behavior of the fracture. Large stresses have an effect in
the damage cohesive model, hindering fracture growth and increasinge fracture opening and
required net pressure.
The influence of plasticity in hydraulic fracturing only affects the fracture behavior if
yielding surface decreases with cohesion or friction angle. The effect of other parameters on
fracture propagation can be studied based on the above model. A more complex simulation
using 3-D hydraulic fractures can simulate for instance in multilayer non-homogeneous
formations that may exhibit poroelastic deformation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was carried out in the Tecgraf Institute/PUC-Rio and was funded by
Petrobras.
CILAMCE 2013
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CILAMCE 2013

2013 - CILAMCE - Finite Element Modeling of The Hydraulic Fracture Problem in Impermeable Media Using A Cohesive Zone Model

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FINITE ELEMENT MODELING OF THE HYDRAULIC FRACTURE

PROBLEM IN IMPERMEABLE MEDIA USING A COHESIVE ZONE

Hydraulic fracturing is a technique for stimulating hydrocarbon reservoir, determination

2 FINITE ELEMENT HYDRAULIC FRACTURE MODEL

σo: horizontal in situ stress

Figure 1. Bi-linear cohesive element traction-separation () law.

The initial cohesive stiffness (Kn) is given by:

3 FINITE ELEMENT SIMULATION

The simulation is performed under the following assumptions:

(a) By surface-based tie constraint (b) By sharing nodes

Figure 4. Meshing schemes of the axisymmetric model.

5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

5.1 Comparison with analytical solution

of a cohesive zone model to simulate a toughness-dominated hydraulic fracture is investigated

Fracture opening [mm]

2.5 FEM - CZM

Crack opening [mm]

Net pressure [MPa]

(c) distribution of cohesive stresses ahead of the fracture

5.2 Effect of the in-situ stress field

Caso 2 - ' = 2.5 MPa

’3 (kPa) ’3 (kPa)

’3 (kPa) ’3 (kPa)

5.3 The influence of plasticity in hydraulic fracturing

Fracture opening [mm]

Figure 12. Plastic zone around the fracture t = 20 s.

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