InterPore2021

Hydraulically driven fractures in deformable porous media- Impact of non-linear flow patterns in vicinity of fractured zone

3 Jun 2021, 19:30

15m

Oral Presentation (MS21) Non-linear effects in flow and transport through porous media MS21

Speaker

Mr Nima Sarmadi (University of Warwick)

Description

Predicting mutual fluid-solid interactions in subsurface reservoirs is essential to address critical geoscientific challenges related to geo-energy such as geothermal energy, hydrocarbon exploration, and underground storage sites. In this work, a mathematical setting is presented on the basis of the variational principle for the minimisation of fracturing system energy in the context of finite strain elasticity. The nonlinear system of equations is solved by employing an iterative Newton method on the finite element mesh to emulate nonlinear hydro-mechanical processes of the subsurface porous materials, and the robustness of this numerical method is tested by simulating a benchmark example. The particular focus is on investigating the impact of the non-linear flow field within the fractured zone, the prediction of the fracture pathway, and the evolution of reservoir transmissivity. The results imply the significant changes of the fluid regime and the pressure drop inside the crack as well as around the crack-tip caused by the development of fracture subjected to fluid injection.