Section 300

FRACTURING ENGINEERING MANUAL

Schlumberger May 1998
Dowell
Fracture Modeling
Page 19 of 35

The 2D grid can produce some problems with complex stress profiles. Some PL-3D
simulators have difficulty handling bounding layers with a value of stress lower than
the pay, which are separated from the pay by a bounding layer with a higher stress.
This situation causes the grid elements to become increasingly skewed as the
fracture grows into the lower stress bounding layer. This continues until the
computational errors are extremely large and the simulator terminates the run.
The advantage of any PL-3D simulator is the ability to model the pressure drop
laterally within the fracture. As the fracture grows with each step of the simulation,
all of the parameters are recalculated in each grid element. Using the grid system,
the pressure at the lateral tip of the fracture can be lower than the pressure at the
wellbore. This allows the simulator to model a fracture with a greater vertical height
at the wellbore than at the fracture tip. The profile of this type of fracture is
determined by the grid and is not a lumped solution. Fig. 9 is a profile from a PL-3D
simulation.

Fig. 9. Fracture profile (PL-3D model).

3.4 Fully Three-Dimensional (3D)

Techniques for general 3D fracture propagation (including out-of-plane) have been
presented by some authors. The numerous problems and the system of equations
needed have not been developed to the point of providing a realistic, operational,
fully 3D model. A model that is truly a fully 3D model is needed to simulate special
conditions that cannot be handled by other models. However, at the present time,
no working model exists in the industry — except in research.

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