Particle-fluid flow and transport within rough fractures

Proppant injection is an important part of a hydraulic fracturing programs in which fluid-particle slurry is injected into rock fractures. Injected particles are lodged between fracture surfaces during wall close-in thereby propping open the fracture, improving connectivity and production. This paper investigates behaviour of proppant particles within artificially generated rock fractures, providing insight into transport behavioural differences caused by realistic surface roughness. Better understanding of proppant behaviour within more realistic rough fracture conditions provides greater understanding of proppant transport as compared to past works where smooth walled fracture configurations were utilized. A clearer understanding is important in providing more accurate evaluation of realistic proppant flow and distribution and improving injection design. In this study a roughened surface, analogues to actual rock fracture surface, is artificially generated based on a rock surface’s fractal dimension and asperity height standard deviation. Computational representation of the rock surfaces and flow domain is generated. Resolved Discrete Element Method coupled with computational fluid dynamics (DEM-CFD) is implemented in this study to evaluate proppant particle transport behaviour within the fractures. This work highlights importance of considering fracture surface roughness in evaluating proppant flow and transport and more generally the impact of rough boundary conditions of particle-fluid systems.