Title: Interpretation of displacement fields around hydraulic fracture tip using digital image correlation method

Authors: Jingnan Dong; Mian Chen; Musharraf Zaman

Addresses: State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resources and Prospecting, Beijing 102249, China; CNPC Engineering Technology R&D Company Limited, Beijing 102206, China ' State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resources and Prospecting, Beijing 102249, China ' Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA

Abstract: Hydraulic fracture is of crucial importance in the enhancement of unconventional oil and gas production. A small-scale hydraulic fracture device based on double cantilever beam theory is used to induce mode I hydraulic fracture. Using digital image correlation method, an experimental technique is developed to identify the full-field displacement of the two-dimensional hydraulic fracture tip. Conclusion shows that the crack tip position extracted from the nonlinear fitting conforms well to the optical microscope observation. The sizes and the morphologies of the process zone near the hydraulic fracture tip are different in various materials. [Received: September 29, 2019; Accepted: June 3, 2020]

Keywords: hydraulic fracture tip; digital image correlation; DIC; full-field displacement; Williams' series; process zone.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOGCT.2021.116679

International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology, 2021 Vol.27 No.4, pp.424 - 433

Received: 29 Sep 2019
Accepted: 03 Jun 2020

Published online: 29 Jul 2021 *

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