Hageman, T., Fathima, K.M.P. and de Borst, R. orcid.org/0000-0002-3457-3574 (2019) Isogeometric analysis of fracture propagation in saturated porous media due to a pressurised non-Newtonian fluid. Computers and Geotechnics, 112. pp. 272-283. ISSN 0266-352X
Abstract
A model has been developed to simulate fractures which are pressurised using a non-Newtonian (power-law) fluid. The flow in the surrounding, deformable porous medium is described with a non-Newtonian fluid as well. The resulting model can represent the propagation of pressurised fractures, leak-off and the interstitial fluid pressure in a saturated porous medium. The resulting equations have been discretised using Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS), cast into a traditional finite element datastructure using Bézier extraction. It is shown that lumped integration of the fracture inflow terms is needed to obtain non-oscillatory results for the fluid velocity normal to the discontinuity, and an integration scheme has been derived to prevent non-physical fluid leak-off from the fracture tips. Simulations have been carried out for a typical hydraulic fracture problem. The results show the dependence of the fluid leak-off and the fracture tip pressure on the power-law fluid index. Shear-thinning fluids result in a larger amount of fluid leak-off compared to Newtonian fluids, but their lower effective viscosity results in a higher pressure at the fracture tip. These effects influence the propagation velocity of the pressurised fracture, and thus demonstrate the importance of properly modelling the non-Newtonian character of pressurising fluids.
Metadata
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). | ||||
Keywords: | Fracture; Poroelasticity; Non-Newtonian fluids; Isogeometric analysis; Interface elements | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield | ||||
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Civil and Structural Engineering (Sheffield) | ||||
Funding Information: |
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Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield | ||||
Date Deposited: | 31 May 2019 11:37 | ||||
Last Modified: | 31 May 2019 23:28 | ||||
Status: | Published | ||||
Publisher: | Elsevier | ||||
Refereed: | Yes | ||||
Identification Number: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2019.04.030 |