Distinct element modeling of hydraulically fractured Lac du Bonnet granite

Abstract

The aim of this study is to better understand the mechanics of fracture development and propagation during hydraulic fracturing. This paper presents some development and applications of discrete particle modeling of this problem. A discontinuum modeling approach idealizes the material as separate particles bonded together at their contact points and utilizes the breakage of individual structural units or bonds to represent damage. The numerical models are correlated with existing hydrofracture laboratory experiments, which are presented in other publications. A simulation of a laboratory‐scale hydrofracture experiment and the acoustic emission (AE) data from the experiment is used to validate the synthetic AEs produced in the hydrofracture model. This technique has been used to examine the mechanics of fracture initiation and time and spatial distributions of AE. The modeling results demonstrate that the mechanism of hydraulically induced fracture in the Lac du Bonnet (LdB) granite core sample is predominantly tensile failure and that the shear cracks recorded in the hydrofracture experiment were due to slip on preexisting fractures. Numerical modeling of hydrofracture on homogeneous and heterogeneous synthetic samples seems to capture much of the behavior observed in the laboratory hydrofracture experiments.