Influence Of The Production Technology To Fracturing Proppant

The hydraulic fracturing technology is becoming the key technology in the modern oil drilling and plays an important role in the process of mining in the low permeable oil fields. Oil fracturing proppant as one of the essential items in the fracturing process, its performance affects the results of hydraulic fracturing directly. The apparent density affects the settlement speed of proppant in the fracturing fluid; The breakage ratio is one of the proppant’s performance. The fragments which are crushed by proppants can block the crack, and this phenomenon influence the oil productivity.Currently, the main material of producing proppant is bauxite which contains72wt%or more A12O3. For reducing cost, the paper got the paoppants by low grade bauxite (67wt%Al2O3) adding dolomite as the auxiliary materials. The process conditions containing sizes, mixing, granulation, drying, sphericity, additive proportion of auxiliary materials, heating rate and sintering temperature were researched. In the experimentation, the bulk density, the apparent density and breakage ratio were tested. The phase composition was analyzed by x-ray diffraction and microstructure was observed by scanning electron microscope. The conclusions are that as below: (1) The factors which include the heating rate, particle size and additives have significant effects on the samples’microstructure, while it doesn’t affect the samples’mineralogical composition. The two crystalline phases which are detected in the samples are corundum and mullite phase.(2) The raw material that has smaller particle size and narrower particle size distribution will have higher compactness and higher compressive strength after sintering.(3) In the process of production, the technologies containing grinding, mixing, granulation, drying and screening are important to the performance of the proppant. In the process of drying, the moisture content of proppant should be about3wt%for avoiding dehiscence.(4) The performance of proppant adding3wt%dolomite conform to the SY/T5108-2006standard. The sintering temperature was reduced by adding dolomite (1480℃to1350℃), and apparent density decreased from3.24g/cm3to3.12g/cm3.