Prediction of Proppant Settling Velocity in Fiber-Containing Fracturing Fluids

Hydraulic fracturing is the main stimulation method in the development of oil and gas fields. It is helpful to predict the fracture support effect during fracturing by calculating the settling velocity of particles in the fracturing fluid. Experimental research shows that fibers mixed into the fracturing fluid can improve the performance of suspended sand. In this study, fiber was considered a solvent in the fracturing fluid, and the constitutive model of the fiber-containing fracturing fluid was modified according to the fluid rheology. From the analysis of the mechanical behavior in the fiber-containing fluid, the settling velocity of particles slowed down because of some reasons. First, the viscosity of the fiber-containing fracturing fluid increased significantly. The other mechanism is the resistance mechanism of the fiber acting on the particle. The apparent viscosity was fitted based on the rheological model and the measurements. Then, the drag coefficient model of the settling particles was built according to the rheological data of the fibrous fluid. A semi-empirical model was developed to predict the terminal settling velocity through research on dynamics. By characteristic analysis of the results, we found that the fiber on the settling velocity is closely related to the concentration of the base fluid. This prediction model is suitable for the base fluid and fiber-containing fracturing fluid, and the average relative difference between the prediction model and measurements was acceptable.

Automated summary

Hydraulic fracturing is the main method used in oil and gas field development. The settling velocity of particles in the fracturing fluid can be calculated to predict the fracture support effect. Experiments show that adding fibers to the fracturing fluid can improve the performance of suspended sand. This study modified the constitutive model of fiber-containing fracturing fluid based on fluid rheology and analyzed the mechanical behavior to determine the reasons for the slowed settling velocity of particles.