Laboratory Scale Hydraulic Fracture and Proppant Injection

Abstract:

A series of fracture and proppant injection tests have been conducted on Marcellus shale from an outcrop in Pennsylvania at the laboratory scale. The shale outcrop was recently exposed by new construction and shows little sign of weathering. Specimens 3 inches in diameter and nominally 6 inches long were cored (parallel to bedding) from blocks taken from the outcrop. A 3 inch hole was then cored down the center of the specimen and “cased” with 0.25 inch high pressure tubing, leaving 0.75 inches of space at the bottom of the borehole uncased.

Specimens were then loaded under in an axisymmetric extension stress state and hydraulically fractured in order to generate the appropriate fracture orientation to represent the opening of a fracture in a typical long horizontal well, where fractures are “disks on a string.” After fracture with water, while still under stress, a guar/proppant mixture was injected into the specimen to investigate the distribution of proppant in the fracture. Silicon carbide particles were used as proppant to assist in proppant visualization in microCT scans performed after the test was completed.

Corresponding numerical analyses (using the finite element method) of the flow path and particle transport are underway, coupled with idealized flow experiments to validate the codes being used to model the particle transport. Some of the meshes being used were developed directly from CT scans. 

Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000. SAND2015-6111 A.