Abstract—Understanding the interaction between hydraulic fractures and natural fractures, and predicting the hydraulic fractures propagation behavior is important to select the best stimulation design and completion strategy in the naturally fractured shale gas reservoirs. This paper introduces a novel numerical simulation model based on the finite element method and discrete element method. Besides in-site stress and the angle of natural fractures, influence on its opening by natural fractures’ permeability and adhesive strength are also considered in the meantime. The established model is used to investigate the mechanism of fracture network geometry within a single fracturing stage. The results indicate that with the increasing of horizontal stress difference or adhesive strength and the decreasing of natural fractures’ permeability, the influence on hydraulic fractures caused by natural fractures is decreasing, which will generate long major hydraulic fractures and the complexity of the fractures also reduce. Low angle natural fractures system are more easily opened by hydraulic fracture, but once the high angle fracture opened more complex fracture network will be formed. This paper provides improved understanding of complex network fractures generation and a reliable method for the volume fracturing treatment design and the fracture pattern prediction for shale formations.
Index Terms—Shale gas, fracture propagation, natural fractures, complex network fractures, fracture complicated index, numerical simulation.
The authors are with China University of Petroleum, Beijing, China (e-mail: Zhout1986@126.com, zhangsc@cup.edu.cn, zouyushi@126.com, Linhun016@aliyun.com, 18511900293@163.com).
[PDF]
Cite: Zhou Tong, Zhang Shicheng, Zou Yushi, Lin Hun, and Hao Siying, "Fracture Distribution Pattern via Numerical Stimulation in Naturally Fractured Shale Gas Reservoir," International Journal of Materials, Mechanics and Manufacturing vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 290-297, 2017.
![[Click]](http://www.ijmmm.org/img/ijmmm_v7n2_inspec%28IET%29_indexscreenshot.jpg){kind=link}