On the coarse-scale residual opening of hydraulic fractures created using the Channel Fracturing technique

Abstract

Channel fracturing is a novel technique utilised to achieve discontinuous placement of proppant within a hydraulic fracture and create a network of open channels or voids between the proppant-filled regions (proppant columns), which can significantly increase the conductivity of the fracture. The problem of deformation and fluid flow in a partially-filled fracture involves two length scales: a large scale comparable to the length of the fracture ~O(10²) m and a fine scale comparable to the length of the proppant filled regions or ‘columns’ ~ O(1) m. In this paper, a homogenisation procedure is developed to obtain the residual opening profile and effective fracture conductivity at the large scale from the solution of a ‘unit-cell’ problem at the fine scale. The application of the model in a practical scenario is demonstrated by performing a mock numerical simulation