• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.538-546
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• 2013

This paper deals with a hydraulic fracturing technique, which is one of the methods to maximize the recovery rate and productivity of oil and gas in the petroleum industry. In the hydraulic fracturing, typically water mixed with sand and chemicals is injected into a wellbore in order to create artificial fractures along which formation fluids migrate to the well. In recent years, it is widely used in non-conventional oil and gas such as oil shale and shale gas. Three main stages of the hydraulic fracturing process, the proposed design models for the effective hydraulic fracturing and diagnostics after fracturing treatment are introduced. In addition, this paper introduces reservoir geomechanics to solve various problems in the process of hydraulic fracturing.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.323-335
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• 1995

지열에너지 개발의 기본적 개념은 지하 심부의 고온건조암체에 시추공을 이용한 수압파쇄를 실시하여 고온건조암체내에 인공파쇄대를 형성함으로써 유체의 유동회로를 구축하여 지열에너지의 회수를 도모하는 것이다. 본 논문에서는 수압파쇄균열의 발전방향 조절문제와 관련하여, 초고압수 절삭장치를 이용, 수압파쇄공 내에 인공슬롯을 형성하여 수압파쇄를 실시함으로써 균열의 발전방향을 조사하였으며, 수압파쇄에 의한 파쇄대내로의 유체순환실험을 통해 지열수의 유동특성을 규명하였다. 이를 위해 모델에 종균열과 횡균열을 형성시키고 균열내에 주입되는 물의 주입률, 정상류압력, 흐름저항을 조사하고, 이 결과를 이용하여 전산모델링을 수행하였다. 인공절리면에 대한 투수시험에서는 10$0^{\circ}C$까지의 온도변화에 따라 투수계수가 증가하였으며, 봉압 증가에 따라 증가율이 현저히 감소하였다.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.470-479
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• 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 Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.10-19
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• 2005

Hydraulic fracturing is guaranteed to create or enlarge fracture, so the hydraulically created fracture acts as a conduit in the rock, allowing the groundwater to flow more freely through the fracture system. In a recent study, it showed that 12 wells where hydraulic fracturing was performed increased well production. However, it was estimated not to present representation by rock type due to not enough wells. Therefore, this study was performed to clarify the application of hydraulic fracturing at 19 water wells. Rocks were divided into igneous rocks (9 sites), metamorphic rocks (4 sites), and sedimentary rocks (6 sites) to evaluate representative features. As a result, the average of well yield increases $93.4\%$ in the igneous rocks, $103\%$ in the metamorphic rocks, and $42.2\%$ in the sedimentary rocks. Accordingly, hydraulic fracturing presented in this study provides an effective method for increasing well production

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.440-448
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• 2014

Hydraulic fracturing technique has been applied in various fields in order to improve the recovery of energy resources such as gas, oil and geothermal energy and research about finding out hydraulic fracturing mechanism and application has been steadily proceeded. In this study, for effective hydraulic fracturing, a scale modeling was progressed to simulate similarly with the actual site. In order to analyze the development aspect of surface crack initiation pressure during hydraulic fracturing followed by different conditions, the number of guide holes hydraulic fracturing test was carried out by setting up a hydraulic fracturing test equipment. Also, through the result, we tried to derive reliable results by comparing and analyzing the value of numerical modeling which is obtained based on the physical properties and mechanical properties with 3DEC, a three-dimensional discrete element method program. As a result, it is considered possible to generate effective crack using the guide hole.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.43-53
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• 2006

Hydraulic fracturing is an important and abundant process in both industrial applications and natural environments. The formation of hydraulic fractures includes nucleation, growth, and termination in numerous rock types and stress regimes, at scales ranging from microns to many kilometers. As a result, fracture segmentation, commonly observed at all scales and in all geo-materials, contributes to this complexity in many ways. In particular, the mechanical interaction of fracture segments strongly affect almost all hydraulic fracturing processes. In this paper, the segmented fracture opening deformation in rock by hydraulic fracturing is quantified using boundary collocation method and is compared with non-interacting single fracture.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.128-137
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• 2011

The shut-in pressure calculated in common hydrofracturing test for vertical borehole equals generally to the minimum horizontal principal stress, so it should be considered as an essential parameter for determining the in-situ stress regime around the rock mass. It shows usually an ambiguous value in pressure-time history curves, however, because of the relationship between the behavior of hydraulic fractures and the condition of remote stress regime. In this study, a series of numerical analyses have been carried out to compare several methods for determining the shut-in pressure during hydrofracturing. The hydraulic-mechanical coupling has been applied to numerical analysis for simulating the fracture propagation by hydraulic pressure, and the different discontinuity geometry has been considered in numerical models to examine the effect of numerical element shape on fracture propagation pattern. From the numerical simulations with the four different discontinuity geometries, it was revealed that the shut-in pressure obtained from graphical methods rather than statistical method was relatively small. Consequently a care should be taken in selecting a method for determining the shut-in pressure when a stress anomaly around borehole and a fracture propagation with complicate mechanism are considered.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.283-286
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• 2003

국내의 12개소 저산출 우물을 대상으로, 외국의 유정들에서의 산출량 증대를 위하여 많이 사용되고있는 인공수압파쇄 방법을 적용하여 산출성 증대 효과를 검증하였다. 12개소에 대하여 수압파쇄시험 전후로 양수 시험을 실시하여 투수성 증대 등의 효과와 비양수량을 정량적으로 평가한 결과, 비양수량의 경우 전체적으로 평균 약 45%의 증가하였으며 투수량계수 또한 약 26%가 증가하였다. 이러한 결과는 인공수압파쇄 방법이 대수층내 열극의 생성 혹은 확장 및 균열내의 막힘(clog) 물질 제거를 통해 투수성을 상당히 개선시킨 것으로 평가된다. 특히, 현재까지의 시험 결과, 퇴적암류 지역에서 보다 화성암류 지역에서의 시험 결과가 양호하게 나타났다. 화성암 지역에서 개발된 홍천에서의 사례를 볼 때, 고압의 주입을 통하여 상부 및 하부의 파쇄대가 확장 연결되고, 이들 파쇄 열극에 부착된 광물학적, 생물학적 막힘 물질이 제거되면서 산출성이 증대되는 것으로 나타났다.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.41-51
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• 2021

The hydraulic fracturing developed to improve permeability of tight reservoir is one of key stimulation technologies for developing unconventional resources such as shale gas and deep geothermal energy. The experimental study was conducted to improve disadvantage of hydraulic fracturing which has simple fracture pattern and poor fracturing efficiency. The fracturing experiments was conducted for tight rock using various fracturing fluids, water, N2, and CO2 and the created fracture pattern and fracturing efficiency was analyzed depending on fracturing fluids. The borehole pressure increased rapidly and then made fractures for hydraulic fracturing with constant injection rate, however, gas fracturing shows slowly increased pressure and less fracture pressure. The 3D tomography technic was used to generate images of induced fracture using hydraulic and gas fracturing. The stimulated reservoir volume (SRV) was estimated increment of 5.71% (water), 12.72% (N2), and 43.82% (CO2) respectively compared to initial pore volume. In addition, permeability measurement was carried out before and after fracturing experiments and the enhanced permeability by gas fracturing showed higher than hydraulic fracturing. The fracture conductivity was measured by increasing confining stress to consider newly creating fracture and closing induced fracture right after fracturing. When the confining stress was increased from 2MPa to 10MPa, the initial permeability was decreased by 89% (N2) and 50% (CO2) respectively. This study shows that the gas fracturing makes more permeability enhancement and less reduction of induced fracture conductivity than hydraulic fracturing.

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