• Tunnel and Underground Space
• /
• v.23 no.6
• /
• pp.470-479
• /
• 2013

Hydraulic fracturing is used as a method for promoting the fluid flow in the rock and, in the energy field such as geothermal development and the development of sales gas, many studies has been actively conducted. In many cases, hydraulic fracturing is not performed in isotropic rock and especially in the case of sedimentary rocks, hydraulic fracturing is conducted in the transverse isotropic rock. The direction of the crack growth on hydraulic fracturing does not necessarily coincides with the direction of maximum principal stress in the transverse isotropic rock. Therefore, in this study, bonded particle model with hydro-mechanical coupling analysis was adopted for analyzing the characteristics of hydraulic fracturing in transverse isotropic rock. In addition, experiments of hydraulic fracturing were conducted in laboratory-scale to verify the validity of numerical analysis. In this study, the crack growth and crack patterns showed significant differences depending on the viscosity of injection fluid, the angle of bedding plane and the influence of anisotropy. In the case of transverse isotropic model, the shear crack growth due to hydraulic fracturing appeared prominently.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
• /
• v.10 no.6
• /
• pp.125-133
• /
• 2009

Rock fracturing technique through fluid injection into the wellbore has been widely used to extract geothermal heat and to enhance oil and gas production. Single fracture formation is ideal for the production. However, it is very difficult to form single fracture formation. Instead, the formation of segmented fracture is a common phenomenon. Therefore, design parameters are expected to be different from those of single fracture because of mechanical interaction between segmented fractures. In this paper, design parameters such as length, aperture, and net pressure are evaluated by using model of segmented fracture in which numerical technique is incorporated to consider mechanical interaction between segments. Results show that the existence of fracture segmentation affects design parameters in fracturing treatment in rock by fluid injection.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
• /
• v.32 no.3
• /
• pp.389-399
• /
• 2022

Observations on the influence of the fluid infiltration on the breakdown pressure during laboratory hydraulic fracturing tests, along with an analysis of the applicability of the breakdown pressure prediction for cylindrical samples using Quasi-static and Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics approaches were carried out. These approaches consider fluid infiltration through the so-called radius of fluid infiltration or crack radius, a parameter that is not a material property. Two sets of tests under pressurization rate controlled and injection rate controlled tests were used to evaluate the applicability of these methods. The difficulty of the estimation of the radius of fluid infiltration was solved by back calculating this parameter from an initial set of tests, and later, the obtained relationships were used to predict breakdown pressures for a second set of tests. The results showed better predictions for the injection rate than for the pressurization rate tests, with average errors of 3.4% and 18.6%, respectively. The larger error was attributed to differences in the testing conditions for the pressurization rate tests, which had different applied vertical pressures. On the other hand, for the tests carried out under constant injection rate, the Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics solution reported lower errors compared to the Quasi-static solution, with values of 3% and 3.8%, respectively. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis illustrated the influence of the radius of fluid penetration or crack radius and the tensile strength on the breakdown pressure, suggesting a need for a careful estimation of these values. Then, the calculation of breakdown pressure considering fluid infiltration in cylindrical samples under triaxial conditions is possible, although larger data sets are desirable to validate and derive better relations.

• Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.521-528
• /
• 2019

Electrochemical method was used for the fracturing flow-back fluid treatment in Guangyuan oilfield. After performing electrolysis, we found that the amount of $H_2$ gas produced by electrode was closely related to the combination mode of electrodes and electrode materials. Using an aluminium electrode resulted in a large $H_2$ production of each electrode combination, whereas inert anode and cathode materials resulted in low $H_2$ production. Then, the relationship between the gas production of $H_2$ and the treatment efficiency of fracturing flow-back fluid in Guangyuan oilfield was studied. Results showed that the turbidity removal and decolourisation rates of fracturing flow-back fluid were high when $H_2$ production was high. If the $H_2$ production of inert electrode was large, the energy consumption of this inert electrode was also high. However, energy consumption when an aluminium anode material was used was lower than that when the inert electrode was used, whereas the corresponding electrode combination production of $H_2$ was larger than that of the inert electrode combination. When the inert electrode was used as anode, the gas production type was mainly $O_2$, and $Cl_2$ was also produced and dissolved in water to form $ClO^-$. $H_2$ production at the cathode was reduced because $ClO^-$ obtained electrons.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
• /
• v.29 no.3
• /
• pp.157-171
• /
• 2019

The fracturing by liquid carbon dioxide ($LCO_2$) as a fracking fluid has been an alternative to mitigate the environmental issues often caused by the conventional hydraulic fracking since it facilitates the fluid permeation owing to its low viscosity. This study presents how $LCO_2$ injection influences the breakdown pressure, acoustic emission, and fracture morphology. Three fracturing fluids such as $LCO_2$, water, and oil are injected with different pressurization rate to the synthetic and porous mortar specimens. Also, the shale which has been a major target formation in conventional fracking practices is also tested to examine the failure characteristics. The results show that $LCO_2$ injection induces more tortuous and undulated fractures, and particularly the larger fractures are developed in cases of shale specimen. On the other hand, the relationship between the fracturing fluids and the breakdown pressure shows opposite tendency in the tests of mortar and shale specimens.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.39 no.8
• /
• pp.17-28
• /
• 2023

Laboratory-scale hydraulic fracturing experiments were conducted on granite specimens at various viscosities and injection rates of the fracturing fluid. A series of cross-sectional computed tomography (CT) images of fractured specimens was obtained via a three-dimensional X-ray CT imaging method. Pixel-level fracture segmentation of the CT images was conducted using a convolutional neural network (CNN)-based Nested U-Net model structure. Compared with traditional image processing methods, the CNN-based model showed a better performance in the extraction of thin and complex fractures. These extracted fractures extracted were reconstructed in three dimensions and morphologically analyzed based on their fracture volume, aperture, tortuosity, and surface roughness. The fracture volume and aperture increased with the increase in viscosity of the fracturing fluid, while the tortuosity and roughness of the fracture surface decreased. The findings also confirmed the anisotropic tortuosity and roughness of the fracture surface. In this study, a CNN-based model was used to perform accurate fracture segmentation, and quantitative analysis of hydraulic stimulated fractures was conducted successfully.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
• /
• v.32 no.1
• /
• pp.127-142
• /
• 2022

This study explored the fluid transfer characteristics of simultaneous pneumatic blasting, plasma blasting, and vacuum suction (the PPV method), and assessed their effect. Chemical oxidation-an established soil remediation method-was compared as a control. Electrical resistivity surveys found that PPV reduced resistivity by about 1.5-2.5 times compared with the control group, indicating that it increased the diffusion of fluid between the injection and suction wells. Injection and suction tests comparing the injection flow rate, initial suction flow rate time, and suction flow rate showed that the PPV method offered an improvement over the existing method. Slug tests revealed that PPV increased the permeability coefficient by a greater amount than that by the control method. This study qualitatively and quantitatively confirmed that the PPV method clearly improves injection and suction efficiency by accelerating cracks in the ground and improving water permeability compared with the established chemical oxidation method.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
• /
• v.10 no.6
• /
• pp.135-141
• /
• 2009

Fracturing technique using fluid injection into the borehole is widely used technology in the industry for the geothermal heat, oil, and gas extraction. Dealing with fluid-driven natural fractures such as dike and vein indirectly, design technology would be improved by adapting their principles. In this paper, mechanical interaction between the segments is evaluated by modeling highly segmented and closely spaced fluid-driven natural fractures. The number of segments is 71 with 3,339 measured apertures in which the interaction is considerably predicted. To evaluate mechanical interaction, boundary collocation method is used and the net pressure is calculated by using least square method to fit measured apertures. As a result, in case that mechanical interaction is considered, two pressures as fitting parameters are sufficient to capture measured apertures.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
• /
• v.27 no.3
• /
• pp.233-244
• /
• 2017

We conducted hydraulic fracturing experiments on cement samples to investigate the dependency of fracture propagation on the viscosity of injection fluid and the in situ stress state. Ten cubic samples (20 cm side length) were produced using cement that was cured in water for more than one month. Samples were placed in a tri-axial compression apparatus with three independent principal stresses. An injection hole was drilled and the sample was hydraulically fractured under a constant injection rate. We measured injection pressures and acoustic emissions (AE) during the experiments, and investigated the fracture patterns produced by hydraulic fracturing. Breakdown pressures increased exponentially with increasing viscosity of the injection fluid. Fracture patterns were dependent on differential stress (i.e., the difference between the major and minor principal stresses). At low differential stress, multiple fractures oriented sub-parallel to the major principal stress axis propagated from the injection hole, and in some samples the fracture orientation changed during propagation. However, at high differential stress, a single fracture propagated parallel to the major principal stress axis. AE results show similar patterns. At low differential stress, AE source locations were more widespread than at high differential stress, consistent with the fracture pattern results. Our study suggests that hydraulic fracturing during shale gas extraction should be performed parallel to the orientation of minimum differential stress.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
• /
• v.19 no.6
• /
• pp.68-74
• /
• 2016

Hydraulic fracturing of wells during oil and gas (O&G) exploration consumes large volumes of fresh water and generates larger volumes of contaminated wastewater with high salinity. It is critical to treat and reuse the O&G wastewater in a cost-effective and environmentally sound manner for sustainable industrial development and for meeting stringent regulations. Recently, forward osmosis (FO) has been examined if it is a promising solution for treatment and desalination of complex industrial streams and especially fracturing flowback and produced waters. In the present study, the performances of a plate-and-frame FO membrane element and a module (6 elements combined in series) were investigated for concentrating high TDS wastewater. An FO module has achieved up to 64 % water recovery (i.e., concentration factor of 2.76) from 10,000 ppm wastewaters and can concentrate feed streams salinities to greater than 30,500 ppm.