Issue |
E3S Web Conf.
Volume 205, 2020
2nd International Conference on Energy Geotechnics (ICEGT 2020)
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 03010 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | Hydraulic Fracturing and Unconventional Hydrocarbons | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202020503010 | |
Published online | 18 November 2020 |
Conductivity prediction of proppant-packs based on particle size distribution under variable stress conditions
1 Petrochina Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, Beijing, China
2 Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, China
* Corresponding author: liangtc69@petrochina.com.cn
The conductivity of the proppant-packs is critical in the productivity of hydraulically fractured wells. Proppants are also the best medium for studying particle packing. Sand and ceramic media are two most common proppants used for hydraulic fracturing. This study focuses on investigate the relation between conductivity and properties of proppant-packs, the particle-size distribution, porosity and mean particle diameter have been measured. The porosity of the proppant pack under zero pressure is determined from bulk density and apparent density. To accurately measure the porosity under variable closed stress conditions, the compressed width was taken into consideration. The particle size distribution was measured from sieve analysis. The paper presents results obtained by conducting routine conductivity test on a variety of proppants. The conductivity-porosity relationships are nonlinear. The conductivity is most sensitive to mean grain size, followed by closed stress, and then sorting. Larger median diameter always correlates to higher conductivity at low stress. Loss of conductivity with stress is more severe for large particles sands than small particles. The binomial method can be used to calculate the conductivity of different types and mesh proppants, which is shown to fit conductivity-mean diameter data successfully. The research is of guiding significance to choose the proper size distribution proppants in hydraulic fracturing. Meanwhile, the binomial method is a better predictor of proppant-packs conductivity based on particle size distribution.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2020
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.