Abstract
Shut-in pressure, reopenting pressure and fracture orientation are very important parameters to be evaluated precisely in in-situ stress measurement by hydraulic fracturing. Graphical methods on pressure-time curves have been conventionally used, even though these are seriously dependent on subjectivity of interpreters. So there have been many demands on new method to objectivity in determining parameters. We have developed integrated hydrofracturing data processing program (HYDFRAC), based on nonlinear regression analysis and can be invoked under the Window graphical user interface. HYDFRAC consiste of three routines, that is shut-in pressure routine, reopening pressure routine, and fracture delineation routine. Each of routines include independent modules according to parameter determination methods. Its application to field tests ensured both objectivity and facility in determining of hydraulic fracturing parameters. Determining shut-in pressures at each pressurization cycles, we adopted the exponential pressure-decay method(EPD method), the bilinear pressure-decay-rate method (PDR method), and the tangent intersection method in order to find the pressurization-cyclic tendency of shut-in pressures. The estimated pressure by PDR method exists in the range of the upper and lower values by EPD method, and lies near to the upper value more than the lower. Being the pressurization cycle increased, the range of upper and lower limits come to be stabilized gradually. By graphical superposition method and bilinear pressure-accumulated volume method, reopening pressures were determined. Vertical and inclined fracture attitudes were determined by applying the directional statistics and sinusoidal curve fitting, respectively. The results of evaluation of hydrofracturing parameters showed that statistical methods could enhance the objectivity better than graphical methods.
