Masters Theses

Chen Yuan

Abstract

"In the current petroleum fracturing industry, it is necessary to understand the downhole migration and settling velocity of the proppant. If we can master this information well, it will be a great help to obtain effective propped fracture conductivity. In order to study the transport of proppants in the well, we used laboratory experiments and computer numerical simulations to compare the results to get a meaningful conclusion. We spent a lot of time building models on a powerful computer and comparing the experimental conclusions. We finally decided to use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) as the simulation platform, discrete phase method (DPM) as the base model, and compare the simulation data with settling velocity experiment data to draw conclusions. Three cases were run and tested including fracture fluid type, proppant size, and fracture orientations. Results show a good integration between experimental results and simulation outputs. This work will help to provide a full understanding of the distinct changes of the mechanical characterization on the High Viscosity Friction Reducers (HVFRs). The findings provide an in-depth understanding of the behavior of HVFRs under confined effect, which could be used as guidance for fracture engineers to design and select better HVFR design"--Abstract, page iii.

Advisor(s)

Imqam, Abdulmohsin

Committee Member(s)

Dunn-Norman, Shari
Flori, Ralph E.

Department(s)

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering

Degree Name

M.S. in Petroleum Engineering

Publisher

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Publication Date

Spring 2019

Pagination

xii, 65 pages

Note about bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 60-64).

Rights

© 2019 Chen Yuan, All rights reserved.

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

File Type

text

Language

English

Thesis Number

T 11561

Electronic OCLC #

1105154942

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