Recent Advances in Proppant Embedment and Fracture Conductivity after Hydraulic Fracturing

Studies on fracture conductivity and proppant distribution in fractures are frequently carried out with growing attention drew to stable production and maximizing conductivity. Laboratory inability to create formation conditions sets a major obstacle to learn several months or years' long-term conductivity. Proppant embedment is also studied in a number of researches, though by application of various simplified analytical models. A suggestion on studying proppant embedment would be taking factors like proppant crushing and rock creep into consideration to gain a more thorough understanding in interactions between proppants and formation. An integrated Discrete-Element-Method (DEM)/Computational-FluidDynamics (CFD) numerical modeling method seems to be the most effective way to model proppant embedment and fracture conductivity after hydraulic fracturing.