A STUDY OF PROPPANT TRANSPORT IN HYDRAULIC FRACTURING

In order to study the proppant transport in hydraulic fracturing, a two-dimensional transport equation for proppant and a two-dimensional flow equation for slurry are presented, including the effects of settling velocity of proppant. The relation between the slurry power coefficients and the proppant concentration is introduced. The equation that relates the pressure on the crack faces to the crack opening, and a fracture criterion that relates the intensity of the stress state ahead of the crack front to the critical intensity necessary for tensile fracture of the rock are used. The above equaions are solved by the finite element method (FEM), and the numerical simulation results illustrate the proppant distribution.