Hydraulic fracturing process in rocks – small-scale simulations with a novel fully coupled DEM/CFD-based thermo-hydro-mechanical approach

• DOI: 10.1016/j.engfracmech.2023.109424
• Publication Date: 2023-06-17T01:05:47Z
• Authors: M. Krzaczek; J. Tejchman
• Keywords: CFD-DEM; Hydraulic fluid

In the paper, a two-dimensional (2D) numerical simulation of small-scale hydraulic fracturing process in rock specimens possessing single injection slot was conducted. A unique DEM/CFD-based pore-scale thermal-hydro-mechanical (THM) model used to simulate two-phase laminar fluid flow (water and gas) with heat transfer non-saturated porous materials low porosity. Using DEM fully coupled CFD (based on network composed channels continuous domain between discrete elements) at mesoscale, series calculations for small cohesive granular simplified spherical mesostructure one were carried out. Plane strain compression conditions assumed. Both (diffusion advection) bonded particles (conduction) involved transfer. The impacts fluid's dynamic viscosity, gas phase content, temperature difference matrix fracture initiation propagation all examined in-depth. It discovered that those effects great significance behaviour fracture.