A phase-field model to simulate hydraulic fracture propagation

Resumo

The term hydraulic fracturing is used in problems where the fracture starts and propagates due to the hydraulic load of the fluid inside the fracture. In petroleum engineering, hydraulic fracturing is mainly used to re-cover oil and gas from reservoirs. For structural engineering, a great interest is in the analysis of concrete structures that are exposed to hydraulic environments, such as dams, offshore platforms, and bridges. Given the relevance of the subject, the aim is to study the hydraulic fracturing process using a phase-field model. Phase-field models have been intensively studied in the last decade regarding their application in hydraulic fracturing problems, with emphasis on its variational formulation that allows the detection of the initiation, propagation, and nucleation of any number of cracks without the need for additional techniques. The adopted model has been studied and extended by several researchers over the years, who have shown its robustness and efficiency. It is considered a homogeneous and impermeable reservoir and an incompressible fluid, which is not explicitly modeled, only its effect on the crack is considered, indirectly, from the phase-field model. All implementation and numerical simulations were carried out in the INSANE (INteractive Structural ANalysis Environment), an open-source software developed at the Structural Engineering Department of the Federal University of Minas Gerais.