| Hydraulic fractures are created to increase the productivity of oil and gas wells. The extent of improvement depends on the formation permeability, fracture conductivity and the fracture geometry, specifically the fracture length. The cost of fracturing is directly proportional to the volume pumped and the rate of pumping, respectively depending on the amount of proppant and horsepower available. In the design of a well fracturing job, many critical decisions have to be made, related to the desired length, width and height of the fractures to be created.; The objective of this thesis is to develop a 2-D fracture formation computer code to calculate in real time, the characteristic fracture parameters as a function of position and time such as: width, pressure, fluid leakage and velocity. Then the fracture geometry is frozen in time for a few seconds, while the characteristic shape of the high frequency acoustic waves is being calculated using the method of characteristics.; A finite element 2-D fracture-formation computer code was written with the objective of calculating the fracture geometry. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
